GIFT    OF 
JANE  Kc^ATHER 


GOSPEL    ORIGIJS^S 

A  Study  in  the  Synoptic  Problem 


BY   THE    REV. 

WILLIAM  WEST  HOLDSWORTH,  M.A, 

TUTOR   IN   NEW   TESTAMENT   LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE 

HANDSWORTH  COLLEGE 

AUTHOR   OF    'the  CHRIST  OF   THE   GOSPELS 

'the   LIFE  OF  FAITH,'   ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1913 


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All  rights  restrved. 


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I    DEDICATE    THIS    WORK 
TO   THOSE   BEST   TEACHERS 

MY  STUDENTS 

OF  THE   EAST  AND   OF   THE   WEST 


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St.  Lukk. 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  which  make  up  this  httle  book  are  so  many 
studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem.  The  author  makes  no 
claim  to  originality  in  dealing  with  this  question.  He  has 
made  full  use  of  the  minute  research  and  laborious  work 
of  those  who  have  preceded  him  ;  but  he  has  tried  to  carry 
their  work  on  to  a  further  stage  in  endeavouring  to  define 
more  closely  than  they  have  done  the  sources  used  by  the 
three  evangehsts.  In  doing  so  he  has  given  the  fullest 
consideration  to  the  many  different  theories  advanced  by 
modern  scholars,  and  in  consequence,  though  it  cannot  be 
claimed  that  this  work  is  a  '  Handbook '  on  the  subject 
with  which  it  deals,  yet  the  hope  is  cherished  that  students 
will  be  able,  in  following  the  hne  of  thought  advanced,  to 
bring  into  view  the  several  positions  taken  up  by  those 
who  have  attempted  a  solution. 

The  line  followed  in  treating  this  subject  was  first 
suggested  by  the  distinction  made  by  Dr.  Arthur  Wright 
between  the  three  editions  of  the  Markan  narrative  which 
appear  in  the  three  Gospels  as  we  know  them,  and  Dr. 
Wright's  well-known  titles  for  these  editions — proto-Mark, 
deutero-Mark,  and  trito-Mark — have  been  freely  used  in 
the  pages  which  follow.  The  author,  however,  has  ventured 
to  differ  from  Dr.  Wright  in  an  important  particular,  in 
that  he  applies  this  differentiation  not  to  an  oral  tradition, 
but  to  documents,  and  a  study  of  the  Gospels,  extending 

vu 


viii  GOSPEL  ORIGINS 

now  over  many  years,  from  this  point  of  view,  has  led 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  it  offers  the  most  Ukely  solution 
of  the  difficult  but  fascinating  problem.  Should  this  con- 
clusion be  finally  reached  by  others,  the  fullest  acknow- 
ledgment will  be  due  to  the  distinguished  scholar  whose 
Synopsis  will  long  remain  an  indispensable  text-book  for 
students  of  the  Gospels. 

But  the  recognition  of  a  deutero-Mark  in  the  first  Gospel, 
and  an  attempt  to  separate  this  element,  has  led  the 
author  to  a  second  conclusion,  and  this  is  that  the  Logia  of 
St.  Matthew  are  not  lost,  as  so  many  have  thought,  but 
actually  exist,  sandwiched  between  distinctly  Markan 
sections,  in  the  Gospel  which  bears  St.  Matthew's  name. 
This  led  to  an  attempt  to  define  the  source  of  the  sajdngs 
thus  compiled  by  St.  Matthew,  a  source  generally  indicated 
by  the  formula  '  Q.'  Finally,  when,  in  the  case  of  the  third 
Gospel,  the  Markan  section,  or  proto-Mark  was  removed, 
together  with  the  sections  taken  from  Q  thus  defined, 
the  remainder  appeared  to  possess  so  many  common 
features  that  it  seemed  possible  to  bring  the  whole  of  it 
under  one  designation,  and  to  ascribe  it  to  a  single  author- 
ship. It  is  hoped  that  it  may  be  seen  that  outstanding 
features  of  the  three  Gospels  may  be  fairly  accounted  for 
in  this  way,  and  that  the  sources  from  which  the  three 
evangeHsts  derived  their  material  afford  a  sufficient 
guarantee  for  the  deeds  and  words  of  Jesus  as  these  appear 
in  the  three  Gospels. 

In  the  hope  that  the  book  may  be  read  by  others  than 
students,  critical  details  have  been  ehminated  from  the 
main  chapters.  They  appear,  however,  in  additional  notes 
attached  to  the  several  chapters,  and  it  is  hoped  that  in 
considering  the  theory  here  advanced  judgment  will  be 


PREFACE  be 

suspended  until  these  last  have  been  examined.  Instead 
of  crowding  the  pages  with  references  to  other  works  on 
the  subject,  it  has  been  thought  best  to  give  a  Hst  of  the 
works  which  have  been  freely  used  by  the  present  author. 
His  indebtedness  to  his  many  teachers  is  hereby  fully 
acknowledged,  and  if  he  may  venture  to  mention  one  name 
it  shall  be  that  of  the  scholar  whose  work  in  this  depart- 
ment, as  in  others,  has  been  both  stimulus  and  example 
to  a  host  of  students  unknown  to  him.  The  praise  of 
Dr.  Sanday  is  in  all  the  Churches. 

In  conclusion,  the  author  would  express  his  great  in- 
debtedness to  his  friends,  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Vanes,  B.A., 
and  Mr.  F.  Richards,  M.A.,  for  their  most  helpful  sugges- 
tions made  during  the  preparation  of  the  work. 

W.  W.  HOLDSWORTH. 

Handsworth  Collegk, 
January  \,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAOV 

Apostolic  Preaching  and  Gospel  Origins      .        .        .  1 

The  Synoptic  Problem  arises  out  of  a  study  of  prominent  features 
of  the  first  three  Gospels. 

These  correspond  so  closely  as  to  suggest  a  common  origin. 

Yet  they  also  vary  in  a  way  which  indicates  a  variety  of  sources. 

Their  production  was  governed  by  conditions  existing  in  the 
Church  of  the  first  century. 

They  arose  from  the  preaching  of  the  first  Apostles, 

Both  narrative  and  discourses  must  have  appeared  early  in  docu- 
mentary form. 

Each  Gospel  reveals  a  *  tendency '  of  its  own. 

This  tendency  illustrated  from  the  three  records  of  ouT  Lord's 
teaching  on  the  subject  of  divorce. 

Such  diflFerences  call  for  explanation.  Theories  which  have  been 
advanced. 

DiflFerences  will  be  best  accounted  for  if  we  succeed  in  going 
behind  the  canonical  Gospels  and  defining  their  sources. 

Additiojtal  Note 
Oral  tradition  as  a  basis  for  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
The  oral  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Gospels. 
The  theory,  though  attractive,   is  not  consistent,  and  fails  to 

convince. 
Reasons  advanced  for  its  failure. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Synoptic  Gospels — The  History  of  Criticism         .        20 

The  history  of  criticism. 

*  Harmonies '  of  the  Gospels. 

The  sections  of  Ammouius  and  the  canons  of  Eusebins.     " 

Tatian's  Diatessaron. 

si 


2di  GOSPEL  ORIGINS 

Augustine's  account  of  Gospel  relations. 

Theories  advanced  by  German  scholars. 

Summary  of  results. 

Criticism  in  England. 

Dr.  Stanton.     The  Gospels  as  historical  documents. 

The  Oxford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem, 

Theories  advanced  by  American  scholars. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Satings  op  Jesus         .....         .        .        87 

A  source  consisting  of  Logia.     'Q.' 

Collections  of '  Sayings.' 

Patristic  references  to  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  \oyla. 

'Sayings'  in  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament,  and  in  other 

writings. 
Recently  discovered  sayings  from  Oiyrhynchus. 
The  Logia  of  the  first  Gospel  and  those  of  the  third. 
The  exact  connotation  of  'Q.' 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  First  Gospel- .        •        62 

Zahn's  theory  of  the  dependence  of  Mark  upon  Matthew. 
The  priority  of  Mark :  in  what  sense  may  this  be  accepted. 
Three  main  divisions  in  the  first  Gospel. 

1.  The  Nativity  section.     Its  chief  characteristics. 

2.  The  Logian  section.     Five  '  blocks '  of  sayings. 

3.  The  Markan  section. 

Narrative  sections  usually  assigned  to  Q  are  really  Markan. 

The  Markan  section  is  prior  to  canonical  Mark,  and  differs  again 

from  the  corresponding  section  in  Luke. 
A  suggested  history  of  the  first  Gospel. 

Additional  Notes 

1.  Harnack's  rearrangement  of  the  Logian  document  in  the  first 

Gospel.     Other  reconstructions  of  Q. 

2.  An  analysis  of  St.  Matthew's  fire  collections  of  the  sayings  of 

Jesus. 
8.  Messianic  proof-texts  in  the  first  Gospel. 


CONTENTS  xiii 


CHAPTER  V 

PAOB 

Th«  Second  Gospel 104 

The  first  and  third  Gospels  reproduce  Markan  narrative. 

But  they  often  differ  from  canonical  Mark. 

The  theory  of  an  Ur-Markus  or  original  Mark. 

Mark  is  homogeneous,  and  does  not  exhibit  any  dependence  npon  Q. 

The  *  Little  Apocalypse '  in  the  second  Gospel. 

The  absence  of  doublets  from  Mark. 

The  history  of  St.  Mark. 

Three  editions  of  Markan  narrative. 

Vivid  details  indicate  a  later  edition,  not  an  earlier. 

The  secondary  character  of  canonical  Mark  is  further  indicated  by 

its  Pauline  characteristics  and  such  details  as  the  use  of  the 

word  eiayy^Xioy. 
St.  Mark's  use  of  names. 
The  Latinisms  of  the  second  Gospel. 
The  date  of  the  composition  of  the  second  Gospel. 

Additional  Notes 

1.  Analysis  of  the  second  Gospel,  with  notes. 

2.  The  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  second  Gospel. 


CHAPrER  VI 
The  Lukan  Sources 146 

The  Preface  to  the  third  Gospel. 

The  Markan  source.     How  it  came  into  the  hands  of  St.   Luke. 

His  treatment  of  this  source.     St.  Luke's  omissions. 
The  Losrian  document. 
Additional  sections : — 

1.  The  Nativity  story. 

2.  The  travel  document. 

3.  The  history  of  the  Passion  and  of  the  Resurrection. 
Features  common  to  these  three  and  indicating  a  single  source. 

Additional  Notes. 

1.  Analysis  of  the  third  Gospel. 

2.  St.  Luke's  *  special  source.'    Analysis,  with  notes. 

3.  The  sayings  of  Jesus  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel. 


GOSPEL  ORIGINS 


CHAPTER  VII 

PAGS 

The  Justification  of  Historical  Criticism     .        ,        .      187 

The  Christian  religion  is  subjective  in  the  experience  of  the  believer, 

but  it  is,  at  the  same  time,  objective  in  the  facts  of  history. 
Three  questions  prominently  before  the  Church  to-day — 

1.  The  question  of  miracles  cannot  be  discussed  apart  from 

historical  criticism  of  the  Gospels,     The  position  taken  up 
by  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Thompson. 

2.  The  apocalyptic  element  in  the  Gospels  must  be  considered 

in  the  light  of  Gospel  sources. 
8.  The  Person  of  our  Lord  appears  more  distinctly  in  so  far  as 
we  discover  the  human  element  in  the  composition  of  the 
Gospels. 
Losses  and  gains  in  the  critical  method.     The  triple  and  the 

double  tradition. 
The  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 


Index    .       •       •       • Sll 


GOSPEL    ORIGINS 

CHAPTER  I 

APOSTOLIC  PBEACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS 

The  four  Gospels  of  the  Christian  Canon  are  usually 
divided  into  two  classes.  The  fourth  Gospel  is  not  only 
independent  of  the  other  three  :  it  differs  in  the  personages 
that  appear  in  its  pages,  in  the  incidents  recorded,  and  in 
treatment.  The  Person  of  our  Lord  is  set  before  us  from 
a  point  of  view  other  than  that  which  appears  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  and  both  His  words  and  His  works  are 
given  us  not  merely  with  a  different  interpretation  from 
that  which  we  have  in  the  other  Gospels,  but  in  an  entirely 
different  setting.  This  Gospel  is  therefore  rightly  placed 
in  a  class  by  itself.  But  the  remaining  three  are  closely 
connected.  They  exhibit  a  similar  method  of  compilation. 
They  deal  with  the  same  facts  in  the  history  of  Jesus,  and 
the  words  in  which  these  are  recorded  correspond  so 
closely  that  it  is  impossible  to  consider  that  they  are 
independent  one  of  another.  They  give  us  a  common 
view  of  our  Lord,  and  for  that  reason  they  have  received 
the  name  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  The  correspondence 
between  them  is  so  close  that  the  question  of  a  common 
origin  is  suggested  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  compare  them. 
That  correspondence,  however,  is  not  complete.  Together 
with  points  of  closest  similarity  marked  divergences 
appear,  and  these  last  are  so  many  and  so  distinct  that 
any  attempt  to  refer  the  Gospels  to  a  single  source  is 
certain  to  break  down. 


2  ':'•.*        .  v*  :<?^?EL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

J5QV:*^?'^sto4^^  ya)vUe,  :and  the  moral  authority  of 
any  writing,  is  always  dependent  upon  the  character  of 
its  author,  and  the  position  which  he  occupies  with  refer- 
ence to  that  which  he  describes  or  records.  No  writing 
in  the  world  demands  a  clear  presentation  of  authorship 
so  much  as  do  the  Gospels  upon  which  we  rely  for  our 
conception  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  the  central  fact  of  the 
Christian  reHgion.  But  directly  we  ask  how  did  these  aU- 
important  books  come  to  be  written,  we  are  confronted 
with  the  difficulty  that  we  have  no  contemporary  writings 
which  might  have  been  expected  to  suggest  to  us  those 
facts  of  authorship  which  we  need  to  estabhsh  the 
tremendous  claim  which  the  writings  make  upon  the 
judgment  and  the  faith  of  men.  We  are  driven  then  to 
the  books  themselves.  But  here,  as  we  have  already 
indicated,  we  find  that  though  the  main  facts  of  author- 
ship may  be  considered  to  be  fairly  estabhshed,  the  mutual 
relations  of  the  matter  which  they  use  are  far  from  clear. 
Sources  are  indicated  ;  some  of  these  are  distinctly  seen  ; 
others  are  obscure.  The  fines  upon  which  we  pursue  our 
quest  cross  and  recross,  until  the  question  of  the  sources 
of  the  three  Gospels  has  become  one  of  the  most  difficult 
of  aU  the  problems  which  confront  the  student  of  the  New 
Testament. 

In  approaching  the  study  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  it  is 
necessary  to  clear  the  mind  of  certain  natural  but  mis- 
leading prepossessions.  The  writers,  or  editors,  of  these 
Gospels  were  men  who  worked  under  conditions  belong- 
ing to  their  own  age,  and  when  we  ask  what  these  were, 
we  are  carried  back  to  the  latter  half  of  the  first  century 
of  the  Christian  era.  Now  in  the  governing  idea  of  the 
Church  of  that  time,  as  well  as  in  its  organisation  and 
method  of  work,  we  may  detect  elements  which  were 
bound  to  influence  any  scheme  of  drawing  up  a  narrative 
of  the  work  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  We  may  go  further 
and  say  that  certain  features  of  the  fife  and  outlook  of 


1.]      APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS      3 

the  Church  of  the  first  century  would  even  miUtate 
against   the   production  of   anything   in   the   nature   of 

*  history,'  as  we  conceive  it.  Possessed,  as  its  members 
were,  with  the  expectation  of  the  immediate  return  of 
their  Lord,  they  would  never  dream  that  they  were 
writing  for  all  time,  nor  would  they,  like  the  Church  of 
a  later  day,  be  troubled  with  the  question  whether  this 
or  that  writing  should  be  considered  to  be  *  canonical.' 
To  them  '  the  Scriptures '  would  mean  what  we  call  the 
Old  Testament,'  and  the  idea  that  they  were  creating 
what  would  rank  as  of  equal  authority  with  this,  would 
never  be  entertained  by  them.  They  wrote,  we  may 
be  sure,  '  as  the  occasion  demanded,'  and  that  occasion 
might  often  be  caused  by  some  need  which  was  distinctly 
personal  or  local. 

Again,  there  was  no  special  organic  unity  between  the 
different  centres  of  the  Christian  community.  '  Churches ' 
in  those  days  had  a  distinctly  local  Hmitation.  There 
was  one  in  Rome,  and  another  in  Kenchraea,  and  several 
in  the  region  known  as  '  Galatia.'  The  Church  might 
even  be  found  existing   among  the  slaves  who  formed 

*  the  household '  of  an  individual.  Among  these  scattered 
congregations  there  moved  a  number  of  men  variously 
described  as  Apostles,  Prophets  (or  Preachers)  and 
Teachers.     Their  function  was  that  of  *  confirming '   or 

*  building  up '  the  individual  Churches  they  visited.  They 
did  so,  for  the  most  part,  by  relating  and  explaining  what 
Jesus  had  said  or  had  done.  Their  qualification  was 
found  in  some  direct  and  immediate  personal  contact  with 
the  Lord.  Their  position  was  '  charismatic  ' — that  is,  it 
rested  upon  some  gracious  manifestation  conferred  upon 
them — and  it  was  therefore  privileged.  St.  Paul  rested 
his  claim  to  apostleship  largely  upon  the  fact  that  he  had 
seen  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  in  such  descriptions  of  his  spoken 
ministry  as  are  suggested  to  us  in  the  course  of  his  writing 
he  seems  to  have  dealt  with  the  accepted  facts  of  our 


4  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Lord's  life.  Writing  to  the  Galatians  he  speaks  of  himself 
as  having  so  described  the  death  of  Jesus  that  it  was  as 
if  the  Crucified  had  been  depicted  before  their  very  eyes. 
His  teaching  of  the  Resurrection  also  had  been  clear  and 
definite.  It  was  in  accordance  with  information  which 
he  had  himseK  received  from  members  of  the  apostohc 
band,  doubtless  on  the  occasion  when  he  had  '  interviewed ' 
Peter  and  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  in  Jerusalem 
(Gal.  i.  18),  but  he  claims  that  he  was  indebted  more  to 
personal  revelation  than  to  instruction  from  the  other 
apostles.  Such  references  to  the  oral  teaching  of  the 
apostles  lead  to  the  inference  that  it  did  not  lack  that 
insistence  upon  guaranteed  fact  concerning  the  hfe  and 
death  of  Jesus,  which  appears  also  in  the  recorded 
preaching  of  St.  Peter  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  We 
may  accept  that  he  also  '  in  the  synagogues  proclaimed 
Jesus,  that  He  is  the  Son  of  God '  (Acts  ix.  20).  We 
are  expressly  told  that  such  teaching  was  given  not  on 
any  definite  and  consecutive  plan.  It  would  conform  to 
the  method  ascribed  to  both  St.  Peter  and  his  '  Interpreter,' 
St.  Mark,  the  one  in  his  preaching  and  the  other  as 
recording  the  preaching.  For  Eusebius  quotes  Papias 
in  the  following  words  :  '  Mark  having  become  the  inter- 
preter of  Peter,  wrote  down  accurately  everything  that  he 
remembered,  without,  however,  recording  in  order  what 
was  either  said  or  done  by  Christ.  For  neither  did  he  hear 
the  Lord  nor  did  he  follow  Him  ;  but  afterwards  attended 
Peter,  who  adapted  his  instructions  to  the  needs  of  his 
hearers,  but  not  as  making  a  connected  narrative  of  the 
Lord's  discourses.'  ^  This  statement  of  Papias  will  come 
before  us  again,  but  it  is  mentioned  here  in  support  of  the 
general  statement  that  the  early  teaching  of  the  Church 
out  of  which  arose  the  documents  to  be  considered  was 
occasional  rather  than  continuous,  disconnected  rather 
than  systematic,  and  topical  rather  than  historical.  It 
1  Eusebius,  Hist.  iii.  39. 


I.]      APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS      5 

was  also  conditioned  by  local  circumstances.  The  needs  of 
his  hearers  could  not  be  considered  apart  from  their  environ- 
ment. That  which  would  be  of  interest  to  people  in 
Caesarea  might  be  comparatively  unimportant  to  those 
who  Hved  in  Rome,  so  that  we  shall  be  prepared  for  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  variation  in  the  teUing  of  the  story. 

This  view  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the  earhest 
apostohc  teaching  was  given  is  of  importance  in  judging 
whether  the  basis  of  the  Gospel  record  was  oral  or  not. 
The  advocates  of  this  theory  presuppose  a  fixed  form  of 
narrative  repeated  frequently  and  without  variation  in 
the  selection  of  incidents,  the  order  of  their  narration, 
and  the  language  employed,  so  as  to  lead  to  the  '  stereo- 
typing '  which  they  need  to  account  for  the  marked 
resemblance  of  the  three  Gospels.  We  may  well  ask 
where  and  how  this  fixed  oral  tradition  came  into  being 
if  the  earUest  teaching  lacked  continuity,  and  depended 
upon  the  varying  needs  of  groups  of  Christians  separated 
in  locaHty  and  to  some  extent  in  habit  of  thought  and 
interest. 

We  are  told  in  the  Didache,  an  important  Church 
manual  composed  about  the  end  of  the  first  century,  and 
deahng  with  the  teaching  of  the  twelve  apostles,  that  the 
'  apostle  '  moved  on  from  place  to  place,  and  that  he  was 
not  to  remain  more  than  two  days  in  one  place  {Did.  xi.  5). 
It  is  obvious  that  this  would  create  another  set  of  circum- 
stances which  would  affect  the  question  of  Gospel  origins. 
How  would  the  severed  UKXr^crlat  be  instructed  during 
the  intervals  between  one  apostohcal  visitation  and 
another  ?  Who  would  continue  to  them  the  recital  of 
what  Jesus  did  and  said,  when  the  missionary  had  moved 
on  to  some  other  Church  ?  And  what  authority  would 
such  a  later  recital  possess  ?  Their  need  would  be  met 
in  the  most  obvious  manner  by  committing  to  writing  the 
authoritative  statements  made  by  those  who  had  been 
eye-witnesses  of  our  Lord,  and  these  documents  might  be 


6  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

read  by  the  local  officers  the  bishops  and  deacons,  as 
described  in  the  Didache.  That  this  is  what  actually  took 
place  is  distinctly  stated  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  who 
says  that  '  When  Peter  had  pubhcly  preached  the  word 
in  Rome,  and  declared  the  Gospel  by  the  Spirit,  those  who 
were  present,  being  many,  urged  Mark,  as  one  who  had 
followed  him  for  a  long  time  and  remembered  what  he 
said,  to  record  what  he  stated  ;  and  that  he  having  made 
his  Gospel  gave  it  to  those  who  made  the  request  of  him ' 
(Hypotyp.  vi.).  This  is  supported  by  a  similar  statement 
in  Eusebius  {Hist.  ii.  15),  who  says  that  Peter's  hearers 
were  not  content  with  the  imwritten  teaching  of  the 
Gospel,  but  '  with  all  sorts  of  entreaties  they  besought 
Mark,  a  follower  of  Peter,  that  he  would  leave  with  them 
a  written  monument  of  the  doctrine  which  had  been 
orally  communicated  to  them.  Nor  did  they  cease  until 
they  had  prevailed  with  the  man,  and  thus  become  the 
occasion  of  the  written  Gospel  which  bears  the  name  of 
Mark.'  We  may  be  sure  that  the  request  made  in  Rome, 
as  Clement  teUs  us,  was  one  which  would  be  made  in  other 
places.  Harnack  quotes  from  Eusebius  a  statement  to 
the  effect  that  the  four  daughters  of  Philip  '  transmitted 
stories  of  the  old  days,'  a  statement  which  accords  with 
the  reference  to  the  same  women  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
as  being  women  '  who  did  prophesy.'  Such  references 
will  be  most  easily  understood  if  we  take  them  to  indicate 
that  these  women  possessed  written  records  of  '  the  old 
days,'  and  that  their  ministry  was  found  in  reading  and 
expounding  these  to  the  local  Church  in  Caesarea,  in  con- 
tinuation of  the  practice  of  reading  passages  from  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  Sjmagogues  of  the  Jews.  The  early 
existence  of  such  records  may  then  be  taken  for  granted. 
Inasmuch  as  their  subject-matter  would  be  the  same,  they 
would  exhibit  a  marked  resemblance  to  one  another,  but 
inasmuch  as  they  would  arise  to  meet  local  necessities 
there  would  also  be  equally  marked  differences. 


I.]      APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS      7 

The  language  in  which  they  would  be  written  would  be 
that  type  of  Greek  which  formed  the  spoken  language  of 
the  common  people ;  for  it  is  probable  that  the  demand 
for  such  Hterature  arose  as  soon  as  the  Church  began  to 
appeal  to  those  members  of  the  community  who  are  described 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  as  consisting  of '  devout  persons  ' 
(ol  (T€p6fX€vot).  These  formed  what  has  been  called  '  the 
seed-bed  of  Christianity.'  They  consisted  of  those 
Gentiles  who  were  attracted  by  the  teaching  of  the  Jews 
and  were  in  sympathy  with  their  rehgion.  Such  a  one  was 
CorneHus,  and  we  may  well  imagine  that  after  St.  Peter 
had  delivered  in  his  house  the  address  recorded  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  this  would  be  written  down  by  his 
interpreter,  St.  Mark,  probably  associated  very  early  with 
St.  Peter,  and  that  it  would  be  written  not  in  Aramaic, 
but  in  such  a  language  as  would  make  it  accessible  to 
those  for  whom  it  was  written. 

Probably  even  before  this  there  existed  a  number  of 
those  pointed  apophthegms  spoken  by  our  Lord  to  which 
the  name  of  *  Sajdngs '  (Aoyia)  would  at  once  be  given. 
This  name  would  suggest  itself  because  the  very  form  of 
the  sayings  would  suggest  the  oracular  statements  to 
which  the  name  had  long  before  been  given.  Such  sayings 
would  be  received  with  pecuHar  reverence  in  the  early 
Church.  What  could  have  been  more  precious  than  the 
very  words  of  the  Master  Himself  ?  In  their  earhest  form 
they  would  doubtless  appear  in  Aramaic,  but  as  soon  as 
Christianity  began  to  appeal  to  Gentiles  the  need  of 
having  these  also  in  Greek  would  be  felt,  and  more  than 
one  collection  of  them  would  be  made  by  the  devout. 
If  we  may  accept  the  year  a.d.  80  as  being  approximately 
the  date  of  the  composition  of  the  third  Gospel,  it  is  clear 
that  even  then  there  were  in  existence  many  writings  of 
which  St.  Luke  had  cognisance  (Luke  i.  1-4).  It  will 
later  on  be  shown  that  the  sayings  used  by  St.  Luke  differed 
so  markedly  from  those  which  appear  in  the  first  Gospel, 


8  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

that  it  is  most  likely  that  he  did  not  take  them  from  the 
first  Gospel,  but  from  some  one  of  other  collections,  and 
if  there  was  any  great  multipUcation  of  these  the  need 
would  be  felt  of  making  such  a  compilation  of  them  as 
might  be  considered  authoritative.  We  shall  be  able  to 
account  in  this  way  for  the  tradition,  to  which  reference 
must  presently  be  made,  that  St.  Matthew  compiled  the 
sayings  of  our  Lord,  and  the  fact  of  a  collection  made  on 
such  authority  would  account  for  the  disappearance  of 
others  which  did  not  possess  such  a  guarantee. 

As  soon  as  we  begin  to  read  the  three  earher  Gospels, 
we  find  that  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  repetition. 
Incidents  mentioned  in  one  are  repeated,  often  word  for 
word,  in  another.  In  many  cases  expressions  which  are 
unusual,^  words  which  are  rare  in  writings  related  in  time 
to  these  Gospels,  occur  in  all  three.  Not  only  so,  but  so 
far  as  the  narrative  portion  of  these  Gospels  is  concerned, 
the  general  order  of  events  is,  speaking  generally,  the 
same  in  each.  We  find  also  that  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  second  Gospel  the  works  are  composite. 
In  the  first  Gospel  and  in  the  third  it  is  possible  to  dis- 
tinguish certain  sections  as  narrative  and  others  as  con- 
sisting of  discourses.  The  difference  between  the  seventh 
chapter  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  and  the  eighth,  or  between 
the  sixth  and  seventh  of  St.  Luke's,  is  unmistakable. 
If  we  turn  our  attention  for  the  moment  to  the  narrative 
sections  of  these  two  Gospels  we  observe  a  close  corre- 
spondence between  them  and  what  we  have  in  the  second 
Gospel,  while  in  this  last  we  find  that  the  element  of  dis- 
course, in  the  form  in  which  it  appears  in  the  others,  is 

1  The  following  unusual  words  are  taken  from  Dr.  Gould's  Commentary 
on  Mark : — 

TrpwTOKadedplas  Matt,  xxiii.  6.  Luke  xi.  43.  Ma/rk  xii.  39. 

iKoXo^uxre  Mark  xiii.  20.  Matt.  xxiv.  22, 

T^para  Mark  xiii.  22.  Matt.  xxiv.  25. 

dypvirveire  Mark  xiii.  33.  Luke  xxi.  36. 

Tp!f/3W      }  Markxiv.2Q.  Matt.  xxvi.  33. 


I.]      APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS      9 

lacking.  It  has  therefore  become  an  accepted  axiom  with 
scholars  that  the  narrative  portion  of  both  the  first  and 
the  third  Gospels  is  Markan.  But  it  is  not  wholly  Markan. 
There  are  considerable  sections,  especially  in  the  third 
Gospel,  which  are  distinctly  narrative,  but  which  do  not 
appear  either  in  Matthew  or  in  Mark.  They  seem  to  be 
derived  from  quite  another  source.  The  composite  char- 
acter of  Matthew  and  Luke  is  therefore  accepted  as  readily 
as  the  derivation  of  their  narrative  portions  from  St. 
Mark. 

We  may  here  refer  to  the  point  of  view  of  the  several 
evangeHsts,  or  as  it  is  nowadays  called,  the  *  tendency,' 
and  this  must  always  be  carefully  borne  in  mind.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  important  conditions  governing  the 
form  of  the  several  Gospels.  In  the  first  Gospel  we  find 
abundant  references  which  indicate  a  distinctly  Jewish 
tendency.  The  genealogy  with  which  the  Gospel  opens 
begins  with  Abraham,  while  St.  Luke,  writing  with  Gentile 
sympathies,  carries  the  genealogy  up  to  Adam.  Other 
features  of  the  first  Gospel  indicating  the  same  tendency, 
are  the  prominence  given  to  Christ's  teaching  concerning 
the  Messianic  kingdom,  the  frequent  use  of  Old  Testament 
writings  to  prove  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  references  to 
Jerusalem  as  *  the  holy  city,'  and  the  like.  The  second 
Gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  so  much  concerned  with 
the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  as  with  such  a  presentation  of 
His  Person  as  will  prove  Him  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  St. 
Mark  is  at  pains  to  explain  Jewish  words  and  customs, 
thus  proving  that  he  wrote  with  non-Jewish  readers  in 
view.  The  frequency  with  which  he  uses  Latin  words 
and  miUtary  terms  would  seem  to  indicate — what  indeed 
tradition  declares — that  he  wrote  for  those  who  dwelt  in 
Rome,  and  that  soldiers  were  immediately  interested  in  his 
writing  (Clement  of  Alexandria,  Adumbr.  in  Pel.  Ep.  i.). 
St.  Luke,  on  the  other  hand,  reveals  all  through  the  third 
Gospel  the  unmistakable  marks  of  one  who  was  closely 


10  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

associated  with  St.  Paul,  and  who  reproduces  not  only 
the  characteristic  phraseology  of  that  apostle,  but  also 
his  world-wide  view  and  strongly  Gentile  sympathies. 
We  shall  also  see,  in  his  markedly  sympathetic  references 
to  women,  a  tendency  which  plays  an  important  part  in 
enabhng  us  to  determine  at  least  one  of  his  sources. 

Now  the  study  of  '  tendency '  will  carry  us  a  long  way 
in  accounting  for  divergences  between  one  gospel  and 
another  where  they  relate  the  same  incident  or  record  the 
same  teaching,  but  it  does  not  carry  us  all  the  way.  There 
are  differences  in  the  common  record  which  are  not 
accounted  for  by  the  principle  of  selection  or  expression 
in  this  individual  or  in  that,  and  an  excellent  illustration 
of  this  is  afforded  by  the  several  accounts  of  our  Lord's 
teaching  on  the  subject  of  divorce.  In  Mark  x.  2-12  we 
have  the  incident  which  gave  rise  to  our  Lord's  pronounce- 
ment on  the  subject.  We  are  told  that  it  arose  from  an 
attempt  made  by  the  Pharisees  to  get  our  Lord  to  com- 
promise Himself  by  a  declaration  which  would  contravene 
the  Mosaic  directions.  This  appears  again  in  the  Markan 
section  of  the  first  Gospel  which  is  given  in  Matthew  xix., 
but  in  this  last  we  fiind  a  considerable  amount  of  variation 
from  the  account  given  in  Mark,  and  the  differences  between 
the  two  accounts  are  precisely  those  which  would  occur 
when  the  same  person  repeated  what  he  had  written  in  a 
former  edition.  There  is  a  difference  in  the  order  of  the 
several  statements  on  the  subject,  and  the  account  in 
the  second  Gospel  is  considerably  abbreviated.  If  we 
consider  that  the  second  Gospel  is  prior  to  the  first,  we 
are  bound  to  accept  what  seems  most  unhkely,  namely, 
that  the  evangehst  of  the  first  Gospel  made  considerable 
additions  to  the  Markan  narrative  in  transcribing  from 
that  source.  The  third  Gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
not  record  the  Markan  section  at  all,  and  if  that  Gospel 
was  based  upon  canonical  Mark  we  shall  ask  why  St. 
Luke  decided  to  omit  it.    It  cannot  be  because  he  thought 


I.]     APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS     11 

the  teaching  inappropriate  to  his  particular  Une  of  thought 
in  composing  his  Gospel,  for  he  has  included  the  same 
teaching  in  a  passage  which  he  derived  from  the  Logia, 
where  he  gives  our  Lord's  words  without  any  of  those 
quahfications  which  we  have  in  the  first  Gospel.  Nor 
can  we  suppose  that  for  the  sake  of  abbreviation  he  could 
omit  the  whole  passage.  A  better  explanation  of  the 
facts  is  that  this  section  was  not  in  the  Markan  edition 
used  by  St.  Luke. 

But  in  addition  to  this  section  in  the  Markan  narrative 
we  have  our  Lord's  words  given  again  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  in  the  first  Gospel  and  in  the  Travel  Document 
in  the  third.  Here  the  words  are  given  in  the  form  of  a 
Logion.  That  is,  there  is  no  attempt  to  connect  the 
utterance  with  any  incident  in  the  history.  It  is  cast  in 
epigrammatic  form.  It  possesses  all  the  characteristics 
of  a  true  Logion.^  But  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
Lukan  version  in  comparison  with  that  given  in  the  first 
Gospel,  we  see  at  once  that  it  is  difficult  to  beheve  that 
the  two  evangeHsts  derived  the  saying  from  Q  or  any 
other  common  document.  We  are  bound  to  admit  that 
here  the  sources  were  different.  The  two  passages  should 
be  placed  in  parallel  columns : 

It  was  said  also  whosoever  Every  one  that  putteth  away 
shall  put  away  his  wife  let  his  wife  and  marrieth  another 
him  give  her  a  writ  of  divorce-  committeth  adultery,  and  he 
ment :  but  I  say  unto  you,  that  that  marrieth  one  that  is  put 
every  one  that  putteth  away  his  away  from  a  husband  corn- 
wife,  saving  for  the  cause  of  mitteth  adultery, 
fornication,    maketh    her    an  Luke  xvi.  18. 

adulteress;  and  whosoever  shall 
marry  her  when  she  is  put  away 
committeth  adultery. 

Matt.  V.  31-32. 

It  is  difficult  to  beheve  that  the  considerable  difference 

1  See  p.  41. 


12  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

between  the  two  statements  can  be  explained  on  the 
ground  of  editorial  alterations.  As  we  shall  see,  St.  Luke 
treats  his  Logian  source  with  such  respect  that  he  makes 
such  alterations  less  frequently  in  this  part  of  his  Gospel 
than  he  does  in  any  other.  We  are  shut  up  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  sayings  were  taken  from  different  sources,  and  the 
emphasis  in  the  Lukan  account  upon  the  man's  action  in 
the  matter  would  seem  to  indicate  a  woman's  point  of 
view.  There  is  also  the  significant  addition  in  the 
Matthaean  version  of  the  clause  '  saving  for  the  cause 
of  fornication.'  Why  did  St.  Luke  omit  this  clause  if  he 
used  the  same  source  as  St.  Matthew  did  ?  We  may  be 
sure  that  it  was  not  in  the  saying  as  he  found  it  in  his 
collection  of  Logia.  Indeed,  the  fact  that  it  appears  in 
the  first  Gospel  seems  to  indicate  that  it  must  be  con- 
sidered to  be  inserted  by  St.  Matthew  as  an  interpretation 
of  the  spirit  of  our  Lord's  teaching  on  the  subject,  and  as 
a  concession  made  to  the  Jewish  Christian  Church  for 
which  he  wrote.  That  Church  would  find  it  difficult  to 
break  away  all  at  once  from  the  Mosaic  statute  on  the 
subject,  and  the  quaHfying  clause  would  be  added  '  for 
the  hardness  of  their  hearts.'  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  it 
appears  only  in  the  first  Gospel,  and  that  it  is  inserted 
in  the  Markan  section  of  this  Gospel  as  well  as  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  use  of  the  word  iropvtia 
again  is  significant  and  points  in  the  same  direction.  It 
is  not  *  fornication '  as  an  act  common  to  the  two  sexes 
which  is  indicated  as  the  one  exception,  iropveia  describes 
rather  the  professional  harlotry  of  women.  So  that  the 
exception  is  made  in  the  interests  of  men  just  as  was  the 
case  in  the  Mosaic  law  given  in  Deuteronomy  xxiv.  1. 

The  above  study  of  the  facts  before  us  in  the  record  show 
that,  while  tendency  may  account  for  the  character  of  those 
points  in  which  the  first  Gospel  reveals  an  addition  to  what 
we  have  in  the  second,  it  does  not  account  for  the  omission 
by  St.  Luke  of  a  section  which  certainly  belongs  to  the 


I.]     APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS     13 

Markan  narrative,  nor  does  it  account  for  the  difference 
between  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  on  the  subject  which  he 
derived  from  his  second  source  and  that  given  by  St. 
Matthew,  and  apparently  derived  from  a  similar  source. 
The  only  complete  explanation  of  the  facts  will  be  found 
when  we  accept  the  theory  that  the  Markan  source  used 
by  the  first  and  third  evangelists  was  not  identical  with 
canonical  Mark,  and  that  the  collection  of  '  Sayings  * 
used  by  St.  Luke  differed  from  that  which  was  used  by 
St.  Matthew.  When  we  further  discover  that  this  theory 
accounts  for  a  large  number  of  other  differences  between 
one  Gospel  and  another,  we  may  feel  a  considerable  amount 
of  confidence  in  applying  the  theory  to  the  general  question 
of  Gospel  sources. 

There  are  of  course  other  explanations  of  the  facts  with 
which  we  have  to  deal,  and  these  must  be  fuUy  weighed  by 
the  student  of  the  Gospels.  One  of  the  most  recent  of 
these  is  given  by  Dr.  Sanday  in  a  work  to  which  frequent 
reference  will  be  made  in  subsequent  chapters.  Dr. 
Sanday  describes  the  several  evangeHsts  as  being  historians 
rather  than  mere  transcribers  of  other  matter  that  came 
before  them,  and  as  exercising  a  certain  amount  of  freedom 
in  selecting  from  their  material  that  which  seemed  to  be 
of  importance  from  their  several  points  of  view.  *  They 
were  faithful  and  yet  independent ;  not  wilfully  capricious, 
but  content  to  tell  their  story  sometimes  in  the  words  of 
their  predecessors,  sometimes  in  their  own.  Their  method 
in  transcribing  would  to  a  large  extent  be  formed  by  the 
conditions  under  which  they  worked,  and  consequently 
the  evangehst,  in  reproducing  what  belonged  to  his  source, 
would  trust  largely  to  his  memory.  This  will  perhaps 
explain  the  fact  that,  while  there  is  a  considerable  amount 
of  agreement  where  Markan  matter  appears  in  the  first 
and  third  Gospels,  there  is  also  a  great  amount  of 
divergence.'  ^    Now  it  is  possible  that  this  may  be  the 

"  Oxford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem, 


14  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [cH. 

explanation  of  the  facts  under  consideration ;  but  while  it 
might  account  for  merely  verbal  divergences,  it  fails 
altogether  to  account  for  the  omission  in  one  Gospel  of  a 
whole  incident,  or  for  the  inclusion  in  another  of  a  con- 
siderable block  of  matter.  For  example,  the  omission  by 
St.  Luke  of  the  story  of  the  cure  of  the  Syrophenician's 
daughter  could  not  be  accounted  for  in  this  way.  It  is 
impossible  to  beUeve  that  if  St.  Luke  had  come  upon  that 
story  in  his  source  he  could  ever  have  forgotten  it.  Some 
other  explanation  of  the  fact  has  therefore  to  be  dis- 
covered. Some  of  these  are  discussed  in  another  chapter, 
but  it  is  possible  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  divergences 
from  the  Markan  tradition  may  be  due  to  the  simple  fact 
that  they  were  not  included  in  the  editions  of  Mark  used  by 
the  editors  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels.  This  theory 
will  be  fully  discussed  later  on,  but  in  considering  the 
conditions  under  which  the  different  evangelists  prepared 
their  work,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  possibility  that  the 
copies  from  which  they  worked  were  not  identical.  Dr. 
Sanday  would  account  for  '  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
the  coincidences  of  Matthew-Luke  against  Mark  as  being 
due  to  the  use  by  Matthew-Luke  of  a  recension  of  the 
text  of  Mark  different  from  that  from  which  all  the  extant 
MSS.  of  the  Gospel  are  descended.'  Again,  we  would 
urge  that  while  this  is  possible,  other  explanations  of  the 
facts  should  first  be  tested  before  we  draw  such  a  con- 
clusion. It  involves,  for  instance,  what  seems  a  very 
unhkely  thing  to  happen,  viz.  that  '  this  recension  was 
perpetuated  in  just  these  two  copies,  but  after  giving 
birth  to  them  it  came  to  an  abrupt  end ' :  this  statement  is 
actually  made  by  Dr.  Sanday  in  his  Essay  in  the  Oxford 
Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem. 

Rejecting  then  the  theory  that  divergences  from  the 
second  Gospel  are  to  be  explained  by  the  supposition  that 
the  evangehst  failed  to  carry  in  his  memory  the  whole 
of  the  section  he  was  transcribing,  and  rejecting  also  that 


I.]     APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS     15 

they  are  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  a  recension  of  the 
text,  we  find  another  attempt  made  to  account  for  them 
on  the  groimd  that  they  are  due  to  editorial  alterations. 
For  example,  it  is  well  known  that  the  word  €vdvs  occurs 
with  extraordinary  frequency  in  the  second  Gospel,  appear- 
ing no  less  than  forty-two  times.  In  Matthew  it  occurs 
only  six  times,  and  in  Luke  in  a  single  passage  taken  from 
the  Logia  document  and  not  from  Mark.  Now  while 
the  marked  absence  of  the  word  from  the  third  Gospel 
may  be  due  to  St.  Luke's  dislike  of  the  word,  yet  when  we 
find  that  the  editor  of  the  first  Gospel  also  rejects  it  in 
thirty-six  passages,  we  are  led  to  think  that  the  explana- 
tion must  be  sought  elsewhere  than  in  the  direction  of 
editorial  alteration.  For  it  is  most  unlikely  that  two 
editors,  one  of  them  a  Jew  and  the  other  a  Gentile,  working 
separately  with  very  different  constituencies  before  them, 
would  agree  in  omitting  this  word  so  often.  But  if 
canonical  Mark  differs  from  other  Markan  narrative  in 
this  that  it  was  later  than  they,  then  we  can  see  that 
everything  that  tended  to  make  an  incident  more  vivid 
would  appear  in  the  later  edition  though  it  was  not  found 
in  the  earlier. 

Few  will  care  to  deny  a  considerable  amount  of  editorial 
alteration  in  the  dealing  of  these  editors  with  their  material. 
While  in  the  main  they  were  faithful  to  the  sources  which 
they  used,  they  nevertheless  allowed  themselves  con- 
siderable freedom  in  substituting  words  which  seemed 
more  suitable  to  them,  and  in  recasting  phrases  which 
appeared  to  them  to  be  imperfectly  expressed.  But  to 
press  this  principle  so  far  as  to  hold  that  it  explains  the 
many  cases  in  which  Matthew  and  Luke  agree  against 
Mark  seems  to  be  a  mistake.  A  far  more  likely  fine  of 
investigation  is  that  in  which  an  attempt  is  made  to  go 
behind  the  evangeHsts  whose  work  we  have  in  the 
canonical  Gospels,  and  bearing  in  mind  the  conditions  in 
which  the  work  of  the  earliest  preachers  was  accompHshed, 


16  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

to  ask  whether  we  can  say  anything  more  definite  than,  '  a 
Gospel  practically  identical  with  our  second  Gospel '  when 
speaking  of  Markan  narrative,  and  anything  which  will 
indicate  the  second  documentary  source  more  certainly 
than  the  very  indefinite  Q.  Such  questions  may  well 
be  considered  now.  An  enormous  amount  of  research 
has  been  accompHshed,  and  in  so  far  as  an  agreement  has 
been  reached  that  all  three  Gospels  are  not  at  all  original 
productions  but  rest  upon  previously  existing  documents, 
the  ground  has  been  cleared  for  the  further  question 
whether  those  documents  can  be  more  fully  defined.  There 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  approach  this  question  with 
a  feeHng  of  despair.  We  have  certain  statements  in 
Patristic  writings  to  guide  us.  It  is  true  that  these  have 
often  seemed  so  contradictory  of  one  another  that  httle 
use  has  been  made  of  their  statements,  and  perhaps  the 
impatience  which  has  been  felt  with  regard  to  anything 
that  savoured  of  '  the  traditional  view '  may  have  con- 
tributed to  the  neglect  of  this  part  of  the  evidence  for 
Gospel  origins.  But  there  is  a  feeHng  in  the  present  time 
that  there  is  more  to  be  said  on  the  side  of  '  tradition,'  and 
it  may  be  that  our  own  prepossessions  have  had  much  to 
do  with  the  mutual  contradictions  which  we  discover  in 
the  writings  of  the  fathers.  There  is,  for  instance,  a 
tradition  which  connects  the  second  Gospel  with  Egypt, 
another  connects  it  with  Rome.  We  have  too  hastily 
said  *  both  cannot  be  right,'  and  dismissed  the  writings 
as  being  to  this  extent  untrustworthy.  And  yet  we  hope 
to  show  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  both  these  state- 
ments are  correct.  The  true  method  of  investigation  is 
that  in  which  neither  internal  nor  external  evidence  is 
neglected,  but  the  one  is  tested  by  the  other,  and  it  may 
well  be  that  following  this  method  we  may  arrive  at  what 
is  of  supreme  importance  to  the  Church  at  the  present  day. 
For  if  the  Gospels  as  we  have  them  are  secondary,  that  is, 
if  the  writers  derived  them  from  other  sources,  so  that  the 


I.]     APOSTOLIC  PREACHING  AND  GOSPEL  ORIGINS     17 

part  they  played  was  rather  editorial  than  original,  we 
shall  only  estabHsh  the  authority  of  the  Gospels  in  so  far 
as  we  see  that  those  who  first  compiled  the  writings  were 
in  a  position  to  guarantee  the  statements  they  have  made. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE 

THE  THEORY  OF  ORAL  TRADITION  AS  A  BASIS  FOR 
THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

In  describing  the  conditions  under  which  the  evangelists 
worked,  we  have  so  far  proceeded  on  the  supposition  that  the 
sources  from  which  they  drew  their  matter  were  documentary. 
This  is  now  largely  accepted  by  scholars  both  in  Germany  and 
in  England.  Justice  must,  however,  be  done  to  a  theory  which 
at  one  time  seemed  to  promise  a  full  solution  of  the  Synoptic 
Problem.  Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  G.  Herder 
put  forward  a  theory  that  all  three  Gospels  were  based  upon 
another  Gospel  which,  though  fixed  in  form,  only  existed  in  an 
unwritten  tradition.  This  Gospel  originated  in  Palestine  and 
was  written  in  Aramaic,  forming  the  content  of  apostolic 
preaching,  and  it  was  communicated  frequently  in  the  schools 
of  Catechumens  into  which  new  converts  were  gathered.  The 
fixity  of  this  Gospel  was  accounted  for  as  due  at  once  to  the 
catechetical  method  and  to  the  development  of  memory  which 
followed,  and  which  can  be  amply  illustrated  from  Eastern 
parallels.  St.  Mark  was  the  first  to  reduce  this  unwritten 
Gospel  to  writing,  and  later  on  another  version  of  the  same  was 
produced  which  eventually  became  our  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew. 
Later  still  St.  Luke,  using  this  Aramaic  Gospel,  and  working 
over  St.  Mark's  version  which  by  that  time  had  been  published 
in  Greek,  prepared  the  Gospel  which  now  bears  his  name. 

This  theory  was  developed  by  J.  C.  L.  Giesler,  who  held  that 
even  in  its  Greek  form  the  Gospel  continued  to  be  oral,  and 
supported  the  theory  by  historical  considerations,  such  as  the 
absence  of  all  allusions  in  the  Gospels  themselves  to  written 
documents,  while  the  absence  also  of  literary  culture  in  the 
early  Church  made  it  unlikely  that  the  Gospel  would  assume  a 
written  form.     In  England  this  theory  was  advocated  by  Dr. 


18  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Westcott,  and  later  on  by  Dr.  Arthur  Wright,  whose  Synopsis  of 
the  Gospels  in  Greek  remains  to-day  the  most  able  presentation 
of  the  theory. 

The  doctrine  of  an  oral  basis  for  the  Gospels  is  at  first  sight 
exceedingly  attractive.  It  fits  in  admirably  with  the  method 
of  instruction  which  to  this  day  is  pursued  in  Eastern  countries, 
and  the  element  of  stereotyping  which  it  assumes  seems  to  offer 
a  reasonable  account  of  the  extraordinarily  close  correspond- 
ence to  be  discovered  between  the  three  Gospels  based  upon  it. 
In  spite  of  this,  however,  it  has  failed  to  carry  conviction,  and  is 
practically  rejected  both  in  Germany  and  in  England.^  Dr. 
Schmiedel  speaks  of  the  hypothesis  as  being  at  once  an 
'asylum  ignorantiae,'  and  an  'asylum  orthodoxiae.'  He  says  it 
spares  the  critic  all  necessity  for  an  answer  to  the  question  why 
one  evangelist  wrote  in  this  manner  and  another  in  that.  '  If 
the  Synoptical  oral  narrative  was  really  so  firmly  fixed  as  to 
secure  verbatim  repetition  of  entire  verses  in  three  authors 
writing  independently  of  one  another,  then  the  variations 
between  the  three  become  all  the  more  mysterious.'  It  is 
further  a  relief  to  the  orthodox  mind  because  *it  dispenses 
with  the  necessity  of  assuming  that  original  documents  from 
which  our  Gospels  had  been  drawn — writings  of  eye-witnesses 
— have  perished.  The  theory  is  really  wrecked,  as  Dr.  Schmiedel 
suggests,  on  the  diferences  between  one  record  and  the  other. 
Its  advocates  account  for  these  on  the  ground  that  equally 
credible  witnesses  would  give  a  different  account  of  the  same 
event,  and  memory  might  fail  in  transmitting  orally  the  same 
discourse.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  two  terms  of  the 
hypothesis  cancel  one  another.  Its  advocates  cannot  have  it 
both  ways.  They  claim  'a  stereotyped  tradition,'  yet  with  it 
they  allow  for  'slips  of  memory.'  If  the  tradition  was  so  fixed 
as  it  must  have  been  to  account  for  the  many  and  marked 
resemblances,  such  slips  would  have  been  impossible.  Nor  are 
these  differences  slight  verbal  changes.  They  amount  in  some 
cases  to  whole  sections,  and  sections  of  great  importance,  such 
as  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Eucharistic  words,  and  the  story  of 
the  Resurrection.  If  any  sections  in  the  Gospel  story  were 
likely  to  be  fixed  by  frequency  of  repetition,  they  are  these ;  yet 
we  find  that  it  is  precisely  in  these  that  the  account  varies 

1  See  Article  sub.  verb.  '  Gospels '  in  the  Encyclopcedia  Bibliea. 


I.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  19 

most,  and  in  eacli  some  detail  which  appears  in  the  others  is 
altogether  missing.  The  hypothesis  of  an  oral  basis  rests  in 
reality  upon  the  assumption  that  documents  containing  memoirs 
of  the  works  and  words  of  Jesus  were  comparatively  late  in 
appearing,  but  the  existence  of  Logia  preserved  upon  pieces  of 
papyrus  shows  that  there  were  documents  at  a  very  much  earlier 
stage  of  Church  history.  So  also  does  St.  Paul's  instructions 
with  reference  to  the  parchments  which  he  so  specially  required 
during  his  imprisonment  at  Rome.  St.  Luke's  language  in  the 
introduction  to  the  third  Gospel  indicates  that,  even  before  he 
began  to  write,  accounts  of  our  Lord's  life  were  extant  in 
documentary  form.     (See  p.  145.) 

Again,  the  original  instruction  of  converts,  which  we  may 
well  agree  was  given  in  catechetical  form,  must  have  been 
given  in  Aramaic,  the  mother-tongue  of  the  first  apostles, 
while  these  resemblances  are  in  Greek,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  the  same  fixity  in  verbal  expression  would  persist 
through  the  whole  process  of  translation.  An  even  more 
destructive  criticism  of  this  theory  is  to  be  found  when  we 
reflect  that  though  this  method  of  instruction  must  have  arisen 
in  Jerusalem,  and  though  it  is  clear  from  the  fourth  Gospel,  as 
well  as  from  indications  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  that  there  was 
a  Judaean  as  well  as  a  Galilean  ministry  in  the  course  of  our 
Lord's  public  life,  yet  this  tradition  scarcely  refers  at  all  to 
what  took  place  in  Judaea.  'The  fact  that  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  record  only  the  Galilean  ministry  is  inexplicable  if  the 
tradition  grew  up  in  the  heart  of  the  city  they  so  strangely 
neglected.'  ^  In  another  passage  of  the  same  article  Dr.  Sanday 
says,  '  The  stamp  which  these  Gospels  bear  is  not  collective  but 
individual,  and  this  cannot  be  explained  if  they  are  the  product 
of  the  Church  working  collectively.'  Such  arguments  make 
the  theory  of  a  purely  oral  tradition  as  the  basis  of  the  three 
Gospels  untenable. 

1  See  Article  by  Dr.  Sanday  in  The  Expositor,  Fourth  Series,  iii.  p.  186  ff. 
For  a  full  and  clear  discussion  of  this  subject,  the  student  is  referred  to 
Dr.  Stanton's  work.  The  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  voL  11.  p.  17  fF. 
See  also  Oxiford  Studies,  pp.  98,  99. 


20  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS — THE  HISTORY  OF   CRITICISM 

The  four  Gospels  came  into  regular  use  in  Church  services 
in  the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century,  and  as  soon  as 
they  were  thus  put  together  it  became  evident  that  there 
was  much  matter  common  to  two,  three,  or  even  to  four 
Gospels.  It  was  also  seen  that  with  this  large  body  of 
'  similarities '     there    was    a    considerable    amount     of 

*  divergences.'  The  many  attempts  to  deal  with  these 
are  so  many  efforts  to  solve  what  has  become  known  as 

*  the  Synoptic  Problem.'  Some  methods  adopted  may 
be  at  once  dismissed  as  unscientific.  While  no  attempt 
was  made  to  account  for  the  points  of  correspondence,  and 
any  recognition  of  the  dependence  of  one  evangeHst  upon 
another  was  resented  as  a  charge  of  plagiarism,  the  issue 
of  which  would  be  the  weakening  of  the  authority  of 
Scripture,  the  differences  existing  between  one  Gospel  and 
another  were  explained  away  through  fear  of  disclosing 
contradiction  between  one  record  and  another.  This 
attempt  to  resolve  the  variations  existing  in  the  several 
stories  was  dignified  by  the  name  of  *  harmonising,'  and 
the  methods  adopted  by  some  harmonists  are  not  such  as 
to  raise  them  in  pubHc  esteem,  or  add  to  the  authority  of 
Scripture. 

Even  the  text  of  Scripture  has  in  not  a  few  instances 
been  tampered  with  in  the  attempt  to  reduce  the  several 
accounts  to  conformity,  and  textual  critics  have  come 
to  recognise  a  whole  class  of  readings  as  due  to  this 
tendency,  and  quite  rightly  they  make  short  work  of  such 
variants.     Harmonists   of   this   class   seem   strangely   to 


n.]       SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       21 

ignore  the  fact  that,  so  far  from  weakening  the  force  and 
the  authority  of  the  record,  the  acceptance  of  divergences 
really  increases  these,  inasmuch  as  it  gives  us  the  story  from 
more  than  one  point  of  view.  The  word  '  harmony '  was 
indeed  ill  chosen  by  those  who  aimed  at  conformity,  for 
the  blending  together  of  different  notes,  under  well-defined 
laws,  is  what-  a  true  '  harmony  '  really  means.  Reduction 
to  a  single  expression  might  give  us  unison  ;  it  certainly 
does  not  produce  a  harmony.  In  later  days  the  word 
*  synopsis '  has  come  to  be  used  instead  of  '  harmony,' 
and  this  secures  the  great  advantage  of  indicating  that  in 
such  work  an  attempt  is  made  to  bring  the  whole  of  the 
matter  dealt  with  into  the  range  of  a  single  view,  the 
student  accepting  divergences  no  less  than  similarities, 
and  seeking  to  discover  their  significance. 

In  the  third  century  Ammonius  prepared  a  work  in 
which  the  sections  of  the  other  Gospels  were  compared 
with  those  which  appear  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  the 
text  of  which  was  given  in  full.  The  first  Gospel  thus 
became  his  basis,  and  the  other  Gospels  were  arranged  in 
parallel  columns  where,  in  his  opinion,  the  accounts  coin- 
cided. He  found  in  this  way  that  Matthew  contained 
355  sections,  Mark  233,  Luke  342,  and  John  232.  It  is 
clear  that  such  a  method,  while  it  had  the  advantage  of 
bringing  together  similar  passages,  and  of  thus  allowing 
comparison  of  their  details,  suffered  from  the  disadvantage 
of  being  arbitrary  in  so  far  as  the  selection  of  parallels  was 
concerned  ;  it  broke  up  the  text  of  all  the  Gospels  with 
the  exception  of  Matthew,  and  we  do  not  know  that  it 
led  to  any  criticism  of  the  details  thus  arranged.  It  seems 
to  have  been  rather  a  selection  of  parallel  passages,  than 
an  attempt  to  deal  with  the  Synoptic  Problem.  The 
sphtting  up  of  the  Gospels  other  than  Matthew  seems  to 
have  been  felt  by  Eusebius  to  be  a  defect,  and  he  therefore, 
while  making  use  of  his  predecessor's  work,  proceeded  to 
number  the  sections  in  each  Gospel.     The  sections  thus 


22  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ca 

distinguislied  were  called  ret  7rapa7r\rja-ia,  and  in  addition 
to  these  Eusebius  drew  up  a  set  of  tables  Kavoves  in 
which  the  numbers  of  the  corresponding  sections  were 
arranged  together.  References  to  these  were  made  by 
figures  written  on  the  margin  of  the  text.  These  '  canons  ' 
were  prepared  as  follows  :  No.  1  contains  a  fist  of  71  places 
in  which  all  four  Gospels  agree.  Nos.  2,  3,  4  show  a  Ust 
of  passages  in  which  three  have  common  matter  amounting 
to  158.  Nos.  5,  6,  7,  8,  9  contain  141  passages  in  which 
two  have  common  matter  and  No.  10  consists  of  a  Hst 
of  62  passages  pecuUar  to  some  one  evangeUst.  The 
method  of  using  these  canons  was  as  follows  :  if  any  one 
wished  to  consult  the  passages  which  were  parallel  to  one 
which  he  was  reading,  he  would  look  at  the  margin  and 
see  that  the  section  number  was  accompanied  by  another 
number  indicating  the  table  to  which  his  passage  belonged  ; 
turning  to  this  table  he  would  find  opposite  to  the  number 
of  the  passage  he  was  reading  the  numbers  which  indicated 
the  parallels  in  the  other  Gospels,  and  would  thus  be  able 
to  consult  them.  This  method,  however,  Mke  that  which 
it  was  intended  to  supersede,  is  rather  an  arrangement  of 
parallel  passages  than  a  sjmopsis. 

Another  notable  harmony  was  that  prepared  in  the 
second  century  by  the  Sjo-ian  Christian  named  Tatian. 
Strictly  speaking  this  was  not  a  harmony  at  all,  but  rather 
a  Gospel  narrative  formed  by  selecting  from  all  the  Gospels 
passages  which  seemed  to  follow  one  another  consecutively. 
Eusebius  speaks  somewhat  contemptuously  of  this  as 
*  a  sort  of  connection  or  compilation,  I  know  not  how, 
of  the  Gospels.'  ^  Theodoret  also  speaks  of  the  mischief 
done  by  this  '  Diatessaron,'  as  it  is  called,  and  congratu- 
lates himself  on  the  fact  that  having  found  some  two 
hundred  copies  of  the  work  in  one  district  of  his  diocese, 
he  was  able  to  put  them  away  and  to  replace  them  with 

1  (Tvvd<p€tiv  Tiva  xal  <rvvay(ayT}v  oiiK  old'  Bttcos  tQv  eiayyeTdcav  ;  see  Zahn, 
i.  pp.  14,  15. 


n.]       SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       23 

Gospels  of  the  four  evangelists.  It  is  possible  that  the 
Sinaitic  and  Curetonian  texts  of  the  Syriac  version  of  the 
New  Testament  came  into  existence  as  the  result  of  an 
attempt  to  destroy  Tatian's  work.  The  Diatessaron  is 
of  extreme  importance  from  the  standpoint  of  the  textual 
critic,  but  it  is  clear  that  while  the  name  given  to  it  seems 
to  suggest  some  attempt  at  harmonising  the  four  Gospels, 
in  reality  it  was  not  so  at  all,  and  for  our  purposes  need  not 
be  further  considered. 

From  the  time  when  the  Gospels  began  to  circu- 
late or  to  be  appealed  to,  it  was  the  common  tradition 
of  the  Christian  Church  that  they  were  written  by 
those  whose  names  they  bear.  Even  Marcion,  who  took 
exception  to  many  things  which  were  stated  in  the 
Gospels,  especially  to  statements  made  in  the  third,  and 
did  not  hesitate  to  remove  from  the  letters  of  St.  Paul 
passages  which  he  considered  to  be  unauthorised  and 
false,  never  attempted  to  question  the  authorship  of  the 
three  books  under  consideration.  This  tradition  rested 
upon  no  claim  made  within  the  books  themselves,  and  the 
only  possible  explanation  of  it  is  that  the  tradition  rested 
upon  facts  so  clearly  within  the  cognisance  of  the  Christian 
Church  that  denial  of  the  received  authorship  was  held 
to  be  impossible.  This  tradition  does  not  decide  anything 
as  to  what  we  call '  the  Synoptic  Problem.'  That  is  to  say, 
it  does  not  pronounce  any  opinion  as  to  whether  the  books 
were  entirely  or  only  in  part  the  work  of  the  evangehsts 
whose  names  they  bear,  neither  does  it  say  whether  the 
writers  wrote  at  first  hand,  or  whether  they  were  dependent 
upon  others.  The  earhest  titles  were  apparently  those 
which  appear  in  the  oldest  codices,  and  such  forms  as 
Kara  Mar^atov,  Kara  MdpKov  might  be  used  without 
reference  to  the  dependence  of  the  first  Gospel  on  the 
second,  or  of  St.  Mark  upon  St.  Peter.  The  early  tradition 
says  nothing  as  to  '  Gospel  sources.' 

In  certain  codices  the  books  appear  in  the  order  Matthew, 


24  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

Mark,  Luke,  but  Clement  of  Alexandria  ^  held  that  St. 
Luke  compiled  the  third  Gospel  before  St.  Mark  wrote  the 
second.  The  dates  to  which  these  Gospels  may  be  assigned 
will  be  considered  later  in  this  chapter,  but  this  divergence 
of  opinion  is  to  be  noted  here,  for  if  it  can  be  shown  that 
St.  Luke  used  an  edition  of  St.  Mark's  work  other  than 
that  which  we  have  in  canonical  Mark,  and  written  at  an 
earlier  date,  the  apparent  contradiction  may  be  easily 
resolved.  Irenaeus,^  too,  represents  St.  Mark  as  having 
written  his  Gospel  after  the  death  of  both  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul.  If  the  third  Gospel  appeared  before  the  death 
of  the  latter — and  it  is  difficult  to  beUeve  that  St.  Luke 
could  have  closed  the  account  given  in  the  Acts  as  he  has 
done  if  St.  Paul  was  not  still  aUve — then  the  statement 
of  Irenaeus  must  be  held  to  refer  to  canonical  Mark,  a 
previous  edition  of  that  Gospel,  differing  in  details  but 
similar  in  arrangement  and  in  many  particulars  even 
identical,  having  come  into  the  hands  of  St.  Luke.  The 
order  in  which  the  books  appear  in  the  different  codices 
cannot  be  held  to  be  conclusive  as  to  historical  sequence. 
For  the  books  would  first  be  written  on  separate  rolls  and 
kept  together.  When  they  were  put  in  the  form  of  a 
codex  the  order  in  which  they  appeared  would  be  quite 
adventitious.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  codices  which 
keep  the  traditional  order  for  the  Synoptic  Gospels  put  the 
fourth  Gospel  before  them  all. 

The  first  attempt  to  decide  on  the  interdependence  of 
the  three  Gospels  was  made  by  St.  Augustine.  He  held 
that  St.  Matthew  was  the  first  to  write  and  that  St.  Mark 
'  eum  subsecutus  tanquam  pedisequus  et  abbreviator  ejus 
videtur.'  ^  He  also  held  that  St.  Luke  used  both  Matthew 
and  Mark.  This  view  obtained  for  a  very  long  time,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  eighteenth  century,  when  historical 
questions  began  to  be  treated  upon  scientific  fines,  that  it 

1  Bus.,  H.E.,  vi.  14.  2  Irenaeus,  iii.  1,  1 ;  Eus.,  H,E.,  v.  8,  2. 

8  Be  Consensu  Ev.,  i.  2,  4. 


u.]    SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITiaSM         26 

was  given  up.  Both  in  Germany  and  in  England  very 
different  views  have  been  held,  and  some  attempt  must 
be  made  to  show  the  history  of  criticism. ^ 

The  first  to  offer  any  account  of  Gospel  origins  other 
than  that  of  Augustine  was  G.  E.  Lessing,  who  held  that 
the  original  Gospel  was  written  in  Aramaic,  and  that  the 
three  canonical  Gospels  are  translations  of  this,  the  first 
Gospel  coming  nearest  to  the  original.  Lessing  seems  to 
have  arrived  at  this  conclusion  by  a  rendering  of  the 
passage  already  quoted  from  Eusebius.^ 

Lessing  was  followed  by  J.  J.  Griesbach,  who  taught 
that  St.  Matthew  wrote  his  Gospel  from  his  own  personal 
knowledge  of  Christ,  and  that  St.  Luke  supplemented  this 
from  oral  tradition,  the  second  Gospel  being  made  up  of 
excerpts  from  the  other  two. 

G.  Herder  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  see  that  the 
second  Gospel  must  be  considered  prior  to  the  other  two. 
He  held  that  St.  Mark  wrote  down  for  his  own  convenience 
the  teaching  which  had  been  given  him  orally,  and  that 
he  did  this  at  a  quite  early  date,  that  later  on  an  Aramaic 
Gospel  was  prepared  and  has  survived  in  the  first  Gospel, 
and  was  used  also  by  St.  Luke,  who  added  that  which  he 
had  himself  received  from  apostolic  teachers. 

A  notable  addition  to  criticism  was  made  by  J.  C.  L. 
Giesler,  who  found  the  common  basis  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospel  in  an  oral  tradition.  This  need  not  be  further 
mentioned  here,  as  we  have  already  considered  it  in  the 
Additional  Note  to  chapter  i.  Another  typical  theory  is 
that  of  B.  Weiss.  This  theory  had  its  antecedent  in 
Eichhorn's,  which  again  is  based  on  that  of  Lessing  noticed 
above.  All  of  these,  while  they  differ  from  one  another, 
seek  for  the  source  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  in  an  original 
Gospel  written  in  Aramaic  but  early  translated  into 
Greek.     This  Gospel  was  held  to  consist  for  the  most 

1  For  the  whole  of  this  section  I  have  used  Zahn's  Intro,  to  the  New 
Testament,  vol.  ii.  2  Hist.  iii.  24,  6. 


26  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

part  of  discourses,  but  it  also  contained  narratives,  and  it 
may  therefore  be  considered  a  '  Gospel,'  and  the  Canonical 
Gospels  are  accounted  for  as  translations,  other  supple- 
mentary matter  being  added  as  each  translation  was  made. 
Thus  the  second  Gospel  was  derived  from  this  original 
Gospel  with  additions  derived  by  St.  Mark  from  the 
preaching  of  St.  Peter.  The  first  Gospel  used  the  original 
and  drew  additional  matter  from  St.  Mark,  and  the  third 
Gospel  is  based  upon  the  original,  St.  Mark,  and  special 
sources  available  to  St.  Luke.  This  theory  was  a  great 
advance  upon  all  that  had  then  appeared,  but  it  is  open 
to  the  serious  objection  discussed  in  connection  with  the 
question  of  an  '  Ur-Markus  '  in  chapter  v.,  and  further, 
while  it  accounts  fairly  well  for  resemblances,  it  breaks 
down  in  attempting  to  account  for  divergences.  For  it 
is  not  merely  in  the  supplementary  matter  that  these 
appear,  but  even  when  common  matter  is  being  narrated 
by  the  different  evangelists  there  are  differences  which 
are  hard  to  explain  if  they  had  before  them  an  original 
Gospel  from  which  each  was  transcribing. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  pass  in  review  the  many  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  solve  the  Synoptic  Problem. 
The  most  that  can  be  done  is  to  select  those  which  seem 
typical  of  groups,  and  we  therefore  turn  to  a  theory  which, 
with  modifications,  forms  the  basis  of  the  present  work. 
It  is  that  of  Holtzmann,  who  held  that  there  were  two 
documentary  sources  before  the  evangelists.  One  of  these 
was  Markan,  and  in  its  original  form  was  used  both  by  the 
editor  who  compiled  the  first  Gospel  and  also  by  St.  Luke. 
It  was  not  quite  identical  with  the  second  Gospel.  The 
latter  was  considerably  abbreviated,  especially  in  the 
earhest  section  which  forms  an  introduction.  The  account 
of  the  healing  of  the  servant  of  the  Centurion  (Matt.  viii. 
5-13,  Luke  vii.  1-10)  and  other  incidents  were  omitted. 
But  additions  to  the  original  account  were  made  in  what 
is  now  canonical  Mark,  such  as  the  cure  of  the  deaf  man 


n.]      SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       27 

with  an  impediment  in  his  speech  (Mark  vii.  32-37),  and 
the  many  vivid  details  which  characterise  the  second 
Gospel.  The  second  document  consists  mainly  of  dis- 
courses, and  is  to  be  found  most  clearly  in  the  third  Gospel, 
though  the  Church  has  acknowledged  their  author  by 
attaching  his  name  to  the  first  Gospel  rather  than  the 
third.  Other  material,  such  as  the  genealogies,  derived 
neither  from  St.  Mark  nor  from  the  Logia,  was  added  to 
the  first  and  third  Gospels  by  their  respective  editors. 
It  is  claimed  that  this  hj^othesis  is  in  accord  with  the 
statements  of  Papias  already  quoted.  This  theory  has 
not  hitherto  received  any  great  amount  of  acceptance, 
though  there  have  been  approximations  to  it  in  the  course 
of  time.  These  will  be  noted  when  the  question  of  the 
Markan  narrative  is  more  fully  before  us. 

Looking  back  over  this  necessarily  imperfect  survey  of 
the  course  of  German  criticism  we  may  sum  up  results  as 
follows  : — 

1.  The  basis  is  held  to  be  documentary  rather  than  oral. 

2.  The  basis  is  twofold,  consisting  largely  of  sayings  and 

of  narrative. 

3.  The  former  of  these  is  connected  with  the  name  of 

St.  Matthew,  and  the  latter  with  that  of  St.  Mark, 
and  both  of  these  in  some  form  or  other  were  used 
by  St.  Luke. 

Beyond  this  point,  however,  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
any  general  consensus  of  opinion.  The  details  vary 
with  the  critic.  When  we  turn  to  the  course  of  EngKsh 
criticism,  we  find  that  the  general  results  of  German 
research  are  freely  accepted,  but  here  again,  beyond  the 
three  points  mentioned  above,  there  seems  to  be  an  almost 
endless  variety  of  opinion. 

Giesler's  theory  of  an  oral  basis  from  which  all  three 
Canonical  Gospels  are  derived  is  still  maintained  by  Dr. 
Arthur  Wright.    In  a  recent  article  in  the  Expository 


28  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Times  (February  1910)  he  so  far  modifies  his  position  as 
to  aUow  that  '  documents — temporary  documents — were 
in  use  from  the  first ' ;  but  he  finds  these  documents  in 
tablets,  '  perhaps  half  a  dozen  which  St.  Peter  used  for 
refreshing  his  memory.'  This  concession,  however,  is 
hardly  sufficient,  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  St.  Peter 
'  using  notes  '  as  a  modem  preacher  might  do. 

In  1884  a  work  appeared  under  the  names  of  Dr.  Edwin 
A.  Abbott  and  Mr.  W.  G.  Rushbrooke,  entitled  The  Common 
Tradition  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  In  this  it  was  held 
that  the  basis  of  the  three  Gospels  was  to  be  discovered 
by  ruHng  out  everything  except  that  which  appeared  in 
all  three  Gospels.  When  this  is  done,  the  remainder 
consists  of  briefest  notes  as  terse  as  the  wording  of  '  a 
modem  telegram,'  and  the  necessary  expansion,  before 
these  could  be  worked  up  into  the  Gospels  as  we  have 
them,  accounts  for  the  divergences  which  exist  between 
them.  This  system  of  discovering  the  basis  or  bases  of  the 
Gospels  is  altogether  too  mechanical.  The  nucleus  which 
results  is  called  by  the  authors  'the  Triple  Tradition,' 
but  it  is  clear  that,  inasmuch  as  the  common  matter  may 
have  come  from  one  source,  a  better  name  would  be  that 
of  '  the  Original  Tradition,'  ^  and  even  thus  it  would  fail 
to  account  for  many  of  the  pecuHar  features  of  these 
Gospels.  The  expansions,  for  instance,  reveal  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  correspondence,  and  this  fact  becomes 
inexpHcable  if  the  three  editors  were  expanding  inde- 
pendently of  one  another. 

The  theory  of  an  Ur-Markus,  or  original  Gospel  corre- 
sponding most  closely  to  the  second  Gospel,  is  supported 
by  Dr.  Salmon,  who  holds  that  '  Matthew  and  Luke  did 
not  copy  Mark,  but  that  aU  drew  from  a  common  source, 
which,  however,  is  represented  most  fully  and  with  most 
verbal  exactness  in  St.  Mark's  version.'  Dr.  Salmon 
thinks  that  it  is  even  possible  that  St.  Mark's  Gospel  may 
1  See  Salmon,  Introduction,  etc.,  pp.  132  flf. 


n.]      SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       29 

be  the  latest  of  the  three,  since  it  contains  a  good  deal 
more  than  the  Petrine  tradition.  This  is  an  important 
concession  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  present  work  ;  for 
if  canonical  Mark  is  later  than  the  Markan  narrative  which 
appears  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels,  it  would  account 
for  those  features  which  have  thus  impressed  Dr.  Salmon. 
The  question  of  an  Ur-Markus  will  receive  separate  treat- 
ment in  a  later  chapter.  ^  In  addition  to  this  Dr.  Salmon 
assumes  the  existence  of  Matthaean  Logia  upon  which  the 
first  and  third  Gospels  are  based. 

The  ninth  edition  of  Dr.  Salmon's  Introduction  to  the 
New  Testament  was  pubHshed  in  1899,  and  since  then  we 
have  had  at  least  three  works  in  English  to  which  we  must 
give  some  attention. 

The  first  is  that  of  Dr.  Burkitt,  entitled  The  Gospel 
History  in  Transmission,  and  pubhshed  in  1906.  Dr. 
Burkitt  does  not  accept  either  the  theory  of  oral  tradition 
as  a  basis,  or  that  of  an  Ur-Markus.  He  holds  that 
'  the  main  common  source  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  was 
a  single  written  document.'  This  document  he  finds  in 
canonical  Mark.  He  follows  Wellhausen  in  the  belief 
that  with  one  exception  '  Mark  was  known  to  both  the 
other  synoptists  in  the  same  form  and  with  the  same 
contents  as  we  have  it  now.'  The  one  exception  which 
Dr.  Burkitt  makes  is  that  of  the  Eschatological  Discourse 
(Mark  xiii.  3-37),  which  he  considers  to  differ  in  Hterary 
form  from  the  rest  of  the  Gospel,  and  regards  as  a  separate 
'  fiy-sheet '  incorporated  by  the  evangelist,  with  or  with- 
out alteration,  into  his  work.  He  considers  the  Matthaean 
contribution  to  the  first  Gospel  to  be  not  the  Logia,  the 
reconstruction  of  which  he  holds  to  be  hopeless,  but  a 
collection  of  Messianic  proof-texts  drawn  up  by  Matthew 
the  pubHcan,  and  taken  for  the  most  part  direct  from  the 
Hebrew.  These  Messianic  texts  were  probably  the  Logia 
of  which  Papias,  as  quoted  by  Eusebius,  speaks,  and  which 
1  See  p.  107. 


30  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch, 

*  each  one  interpreted  as  he  could.'  The  non-Markan 
portions  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  he  holds  to  belong 
to  a  work  now  lost,  to  designate  which  he  adopts  the 
convenient  formula  '  Q.'  ^  Many  of  the  positions  here 
taken  up  will  be  discussed  under  the  several  headings  to 
which  they  belong.  We  are  concerned  here  with  the 
mere  statement  of  them. 

In  1909  Dr.  V.  H.  Stanton  pubHshed  a  volume  of  extra- 
ordinary value  for  those  who  would  study  '  the  S3^optic 
Problem.'  It  is  entitled  The  Gospels  as  Historical 
Documents,  vol.  ii.,  and  it  is  a  clear  and  balanced  statement 
of  the  many  questions  that  arise  in  this  connection.  Dr. 
Stanton  mentions  the  following  as  *  positions  in  regard  to 
which  a  large  amount  of  agreement  has  been  attained  '  : — 

1.  The  resemblances  between  the  Synoptic  Gospels  are 

such  as  require  us  to  suppose  connections  through 
Greek  sources. 

2.  The  relations  between  the  first  three  Gospels  cannot 

be  adequately  explained  by  the  influence  of  oral 
tradition. 

3.  Our  third  evangehst  was  not  to  any  considerable 

extent  dependent  upon  the  first  (or  the  first  upon 
the  third)  for  the  common  contents  of  their  Gospels. 

4.  A  record  which,  if  not  virtually  identical  with  our 

St.  Mark,  is  at  least  most  nearly  represented  in  it, 
was  largely  used  in  the  composition  of  our  first  and 
third  Gospels. 

5.  There  was  a  second  principal  source  common  to  our 

first  and  third  evangelists,  consisting  mainly  of 
discourses  and  sajdngs  of  Jesus,  which  they  inde- 
pendently combined  with  their  Markan  document. 

Dr.  Stanton  finds  a  considerable  amount  of  freedom  in 
amending  the  Markan  document  on  the  part  of  both  the 
first  and  the  third  evangehsts,  and  this  may  be  readily 
1  See  pp.  88  flf. 


n.]      SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       31 

allowed.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  some  things  which 
look  Hke  editorial  emendations  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  editions  of  St.  Mark  used  by  these  other  evangeUsts 
differed  from  that  which  appears  in  canonical  Mark. 
Dr.  Stanton  himself  seems  to  recognise  this,  though  he 
makes  no  clear  pronouncement  on  the  subject.  Thus, 
in  discussing  Markan  sections  omitted  from  the  first 
Gospel,  he  speaks  of  the  possibility  of  their  having  been 
absent  from  the  copy  of  St.  Mark  which  the  evangeHst  was 
using,  and  the  agreements  of  Matthew  and  Luke  against 
Mark  are  accounted  for  as  belonging  to  '  an  earHer  form  of 
Markan  document.'  This  explanation  he  prefers  to  that 
advanced  by  B.  Weiss,  that  they  indicate  an  '  ApostoHc 
Gospel,'  containing  both  Logia  and  narrative,  and  drawn 
upon  by  all  three  of  our  evangeHsts.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  speaks  of  the  omission  of  the  heaHng  of  the  demoniac  in 
Matthew  as  having  been  due  to  mere  inadvertence.  Again 
he  accounts  for  the  description  of  Jesus  in  Mark  vi.  3,  as 
*  the  carpenter,'  whereas  Matthew  has  '  the  son  of  the 
carpenter  '  (xiii.  55),  and  Luke  '  the  son  of  Joseph  '  (iv.  22), 
by  ascribing  the  first-named  to  '  a  revising  hand,'  and 
where  St.  Mark  has  the  expression  '  servant  of  all '  (Mark 
ix.  35),  the  phrase  is  accounted  for  as  having  been  intro- 
duced by  a  copyist  '  owing  to  his  famiharity  with  other 
sayings  of  our  Lord.'  In  Mark  xi.  17  the  words  'for  all 
the  nations,'  wanting  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  '  may  have 
been  suppHed  from  a  recollection  of  the  passage  of  the 
prophet,  and  a  sense  of  their  significance.' 

So  in  deahng  with  St.  Luke's  revision  of  his  Markan 
document,  Dr.  Stanton  says  that  St.  Luke,  '  while  adhering 
closely  on  the  whole  to  St.  Mark's  narrative,  seems  to 
have  here  and  there  drawn  inferences  from  what  he  read, 
to  have  formed  his  own  idea  of  the  circumstances  and 
incidents,  and  then  to  have  told  the  facts  as  he  conceived 
them.  Or  again,  the  special  interest  which  he  felt  in  the 
subject-matter,  and  the  beHef  that  he  could  improve  the 


32  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

presentation  of  it,  have  moved  him  to  add  various  touches 
or  to  rearrange  the  account.  Or,  once  more,  some  httle 
piece  of  additional  information  which  he  possessed,  or  a 
different  mode  of  telhng  a  story  to  which  he  had  become 
accustomed,  has  exercised  an  influence  upon  him.' 

Now  while  the  possibiHty  of  these  motives  cannot  be 
denied,  yet  most,  if  not  all,  of  such  departures  from  the 
Markan  narrative  seem  to  be  better  accounted  for  on  the 
supposition  that  they  were  not '  departures  '  at  all,  and  that 
the  real  variation  is  in  St.  Mark's  method  of  telling  stories 
which  he  repeated  more  than  once.  Thus  it  is  well  known 
that  though  St.  Luke  is  fond  of  the  word  used  for  '  preach- 
ing the  Gospel' — as  indeed  a  follower  of  St.  Paul  was 
likely  to  be — he  never  uses  the  word  '  Gospel.'  And  yet 
the  word  is  used  absolutely  in  several  passages  occurring 
in  the  second  Gospel.  Dr.  Stanton  accounts  for  the  non- 
appearance of  this  word  in  the  third  Gospel  by  suggesting 
that  the  text  of  the  second  Gospel  was  altered  so  as  to 
allow  for  the  insertion  of  the  word.  But  we  prefer  the 
theory  that  canonical  Mark  is  a  later  edition  of  the  Markan 
narrative  which  St.  Luke  used,  and  that  during  the  time 
that  had  intervened  between  the  publication  of  the  two 
editions  the  teaching  of  the  Church  had  assumed  the  more 
definite  form  of  a  Gospel.  It  therefore  appears  in 
canonical  Mark,  but  not  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel.^ 

Other  examples  bearing  upon  this  point  will  be  given  in 
a  subsequent  chapter,  and  we  shall  only  say  here  that  a 
more  thorough  development  of  the  theory  of  different 
editions  of  the  Markan  document  may  possibly  afford  a 
better  explanation.  In  another  passage  Dr.  Stanton 
says  :  '  There  are  good  reasons  for  thinking  that  our 
Matthew  may  have  been  the  last  composed  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  and  if  so,  it  is  obviously  possible  that  the  Markan 
document  may  have  come  to  the  hands  of  the  writer  of 
it  with  additions  which  it  had  not  received  when  it  lay 
1  See  p.  122. 


I 


n.]      SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       33 

before  St.  Luke.'  With  this  we  would  agree,  only  we 
hold  that  the  subsequent  additions  were  made  by  the 
hand  of  Mark  himself,  with  still  further  additions  in  the 
third  edition  which  is  our  canonical  Mark. 

We  have  dwelt  at  this  length  here  on  the  question  of  the 
Markan  document  lying  before  the  first  and  third  evangeUsts 
because  not  only  does  a  clearing  up  of  this  matter  help  us 
in  deciding  as  to  the  exact  contents  of  the  Markan  docu- 
ment, but  it  also  has  a  distinct  bearing  upon  the  character 
and  contents  of  the  second  document  which  has  by  common 
consent  been  designated  '  Q.'  For  where  we  have  matter 
common  to  the  first  and  third  Gospels,  yet  wanting  in  whole 
or  in  part  from  the  second,  its  appearance  in  Matthew  and 
Luke  is  often  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that  it  was 
derived  from  Q.  It  will  be  shown  that  many  of  such 
instances  are  fully  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that 
while  they  appeared  in  proto-  and  deutero-Mark,  for  some 
reason  or  other  they  were  omitted,  or  considerably 
curtailed,  when  St.  Mark  came  to  draw  up  his  latest 
edition,  and  in  many  cases  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  to 
see  the  reasons  which  may  have  led  him  to  make  the 
alteration. 

Early  in  1911  there  appeared  a  volume  entitled  Oxford 
Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem.  This  volume  is  the  work 
of  several  members  of  the  University  of  Oxford  under  the 
general  editorship  of  Dr.  Sanday.  The  members  con- 
tributing, in  addition  to  the  editor,  are  Sir  J.  C.  Hawkins, 
Archdeacon  W.  C.  Allen,  Dr.  J.  V.  Bartlet,  and  the  Revs. 
B.  H.  Streeter,  W.  E.  Addis,  and  N.  P.  Williams.  With 
such  a  composite  authorship  the  book  exhibits  a  certain 
amount  of  dissentient  opinion  between  the  different 
writers.  Dr.  Sanday  minimises  this  difference  of  opinion, 
but  to  us  it  seems  to  be  considerable.  Thus  Dr.  Bartlet, 
and  to  some  extent  Archdeacon  Allen,  rejects  the  '  two- 
document  theory,'  while  the  others  accept  it.  Sir  J.  C. 
Hawkins,  in  discussing  the  use  of  Q  by  the  first  and  third 


34  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

evangelists,  considers  that  St.  Luke  did  not  use  the  same 
collection  of  sayings  as  was  used  by  St.  Matthew.  Mr. 
Streeter,  on  the  other  hand,  considers  that  he  did,  and 
that  he  has  preserved  the  original  order  of  Q  better  than 
St.  Matthew  has  done.  Dr.  Allen  again  considers  that  the 
first  Gospel  is  the  best  authority  for  the  contents  of  Q. 
Dr.  Bartlet,  who  contributes  what  he  calls  '  a  Minority 
Report,'  accepting  a  two-document  basis  for  the  third 
Gospel  alone,  holds  that  the  special  source  of  Luke  was 
bound  up  with  Q  and  can  scarcely  be  separated  from  it. 
It  is  therefore  far  from  easy  to  indicate  the  general  opinion 
of  this  school  of  criticism  as  a  whole  on  the  subject. 

We  notice  a  general  abandonment  of  an  oral  basis  for 
the  three  Gospels.  The  priority  of  Mark  is  allowed,  but 
in  every  case  this  priority  is  quaUfied.  The  phrase 
generally  used  is  :  '  What  was  practically  identical  with 
Mark.'  But  it  may  be  asked.  Wherein  lay  the  difference 
if  there  was  not  complete  identity  ?  It  will  be  the  purpose 
of  the  following  chapters  to  show  that  a  thorough  appUca- 
tion  of  the  theory  of  a  proto-,  deutero-,  and  trito-Mark 
to  documents  will  answer  this  and  many  other  questions. 
In  considering  the  question  whether  Q  contained  narrative 
as  well  as  '  sayings '  properly  so  called,  there  seems  to  be 
a  general  abandonment  of  Lightfoot's  well-known  con- 
tention that  the  term  '  logion '  ^  might  be  used  of  scripture 
generally  without  insisting  too  rigorously  upon  the  mean- 
ing '  discourse.'  Yet  the  stories  of  the  Baptism  and  the 
Temptation,  as  well  as  that  of  the  heahng  of  the  centurion's 
servant,  are  all  attributed  to  Q,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in 
the  first  Gospel  the  formula  which  always  marks  the 
transition  from  discourse  to  narrative  is  used  in  passing 
from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  heahng  of  the 
servant.  Apparently  the  inclusion  of  the  three  sections 
in  Q  is  due  to  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  differences 
between  them  as  they  appear  in  canonical  Mark  and  as 
1  Bee  p.  43. 


n.]      SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS— HISTORY  OF  CRITICISM       35 

they  appear  in  the  other  two  Gospels,  supposing  that 
canonical  Mark  was  before  the  other  evangeHsts.  This 
question  of  the  exact  contents  of  the  Markan  source  must 
be  settled  before  we  can  hope  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  as 
to  the  nature  and  composition  of  Q. 

If  it  is  at  all  possible  to  summarise  criticism  in  England 
of  the  origins  of  the  S3^optic  Gospels,  we  may  say  that  the 
general  opinion,  with  notable  exceptions,  is  as  follows  : — 

1.  The  basis  was  documentary  rather  than  oral. 

2.  The  documents  were  two  in  number,  and  consisted 

of  a  collection  or  collections  of  '  sajdngs,'  and  a 
narrative  portion  corresponding  most  closely  to 
canonical  Mark. 

3.  In  addition  to  these  there  were  special  sources  avail- 

able to  the  first  and  third  evangelists  which  account 
for  such  features  in  both  as  the  genealogical  tables, 
the  Messianic  texts,  and  '  the  Travel  Document,' 
or  Perean  Section. 

In  America  a  notable  contribution  to  the  study  of  the 
Synoptic  Problem  is  to  be  found  in  an  able  Introduction 
to  a  Commentary  on  the  second  Gospel  by  Dr.  B.  W. 
Bacon  of  Yale  University.  Dr.  Bacon's  conclusions  are 
to  the  effect  that  the  second  Gospel  is  the  work  of  a 
redactor,  and  very  much  more  than  a  mere  editing  of  St. 
Peter's  discourses,  inasmuch  as  it  contains  sections  which 
show  no  intrinsic  evidence  of  proceeding  from  such  a 
source,  and  is  dominated  by  theoretical  considerations, 
often  manifestly  derived  from  the  Pauhne  Epistles,  especi 
ally  Romans.  He  also  holds  that  this  redactor  used  Q 
to  embeUish  and  supplement  an  earher  and  simpler  Petrine 
narrative.  Dr.  Bacon  does  not  discuss  in  detail  the  other 
sources,  but  he  apparently  holds  that  Q  contained  the 
sections  which  describe  the  preaching  of  the  Baptist  and  the 
Baptism  and  Temptation  of  our  Lord,  and  also  that  some 


36  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  the  narrative  supplements  of  Mark  are  derived  from  the 
Lukan  form  of  Q. 

A  more  detailed  and  comprehensive  discussion  of  the 
whole  question  is  to  be  found  in  an  excellent  reprint  from 
the  Decennial  Publications  of  the  University  of  Chicago  by 
Dr.  E.  De  Witt  Burton,  entitled  The  Principles  of  Literary 
Criticism  and  the  Synoptic  Problem.  We  cannot  do  more 
than  summarise  the  conclusions  of  Dr.  Burton,  which  are 
as  follows  : — 

1.  Our  Mark,  or  a  document  in  large  part  identical  with 

it,  was  employed  as  a  source  of  both  our  first  and 
third  Gospels. 

2.  The  Matthaean  sources  in  addition  to  Mark  are,  a 

document  not  employed  by  Luke,  made  up  chiefly 
or  wholly  of  discourses  and  presumably  the  Logia 
of  St.  Matthew.  In  addition,  two  documentary 
sources  common  to  Luke  and  Matthew  are  found 
in  what  are  described  as  the  Gahlean  document 
and  the  Perean  document.  Minor  sources  also 
exist  in  the  infancy  narrative,  etc. 

3.  St.  Luke  has  the  same  chief  sources  as  are  indicated 

in  Matthew,  with  the  exception  of  the  Matthaean 
Logia  as  above  said.  He  has  interpolated  material 
from  the  GaHlean  document  into  the  Markan 
narrative,  omitting  St.  Mark's  similar  narratives 
when  they  seemed  to  him  less  full  and  vivid,  and 
adding  the  Perean  document  in  two  soHd  sections. 
The  agreements  of  Matthew  and  Luke  against 
Mark  are  left  as  an  unexplained  remainder  by 
Dr.  Burton. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  general  results  of  criticism 
in  America  are  much  the  same  as  we  have  found  in 
England.  Such  differences  as  exist  are  prominent  when 
an  effort  is  made  to  define  more  closely  the  sources  of 
the  Gospels  as  we  have  them. 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  37 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  SAYINGS   OF  JESUS 

These  *  Sayings '  constitute  a  prominent  feature  of  the 
first  and  third  Gospels.  They  are  generally  described  as 
the  non-Markan  element  in  those  Gospels,  but  the  phrase 
is  not  sufficiently  definitive.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  still  a 
moot  question  whether  St.  Mark  does  not,  to  some  extent 
at  least,  introduce  into  the  Gospel  which  bears  his  name 
sayings  of  our  Lord  technically  so  called.  If  he  did,  he 
may  have  drawn  them  from  a  source  open  to  either  or  both 
of  the  other  two  evangelists.  If  again  he  did  not,  the 
phrase  needs  some  further  definition,  inasmuch  as  matter 
may  be  Markan  in  origin,  even  though  it  do  not  appear  in 
the  second  Gospel.  Hamack  seems  to  adopt  the  idea  of  a 
non-Markan  element  common  to  the  first  and  third  Gospels 
as  indicating  a  certain  source  which  was  used  by  the 
evangehsts  of  those  Gospels,  but,  as  Dr.  Willoughby  Charles 
Allen  points  out,  the  method  is  open  to  serious  question ; 
for  even  if  those  two  evangehsts  agree  closely  in  many 
sections,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  derived  them  from 
a  single  source.  It  will  later  on  be  shown  that  while  the 
fact  that  the  sayings  in  question  are  spoken  by  one 
teacher  gives  them  a  considerable  amount  of  resemblance, 
there  is  nevertheless  good  reason  for  beHeving  that  the 
two  evangehsts  derived  them  from  different  sources. 
Another  descriptive  title,  used  formerly  in  speaking  of 
this  source,  is  the  word  '  Logia.'  But  this  again  is  open  to 
misconception.  For  the  same  word  seems  to  be  used, 
notably  in  Romans  iii.  2,  where  we  should  use  the  word 
'  Scriptures.'     Such  a  term  then  might  denote  a  docu- 


38  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

ment  which  contained  as  much  narrative  as  discourse,  or 
it  might  be  used  in  a  more  strictly  etymological  sense  to 
describe  more  oracular  sajangs.  The  uncertainty  would 
then  arise  whether,  when  the  word  was  used  by  any  par- 
ticular scholar,  it  was  taken  to  cover  a  source  consisting 
entirely  of  sayings,  or  whether  it  connoted  one  which 
contained  a  certain  amount  of  historical  matter,  or  in 
other  words  a  *  Gospel,'  as  the  word  is  understood  in  our 
days. 

To  avoid  such  difficulties  the  non-committal  formula 
'  Q  '  (  =  Quelle= Source)  has  found  general  acceptance  of 
late  years.  But,  unfortunately,  the  uncertainty  still 
remains.  We  are  told  that  St.  Matthew  caused  to  be 
collected  {crwerd^aTo)  the  '  sajdngs '  (Logia)  of  Jesus. 
Are  we  to  suppose  that  this  collection  of  St.  Matthew's  is 
what  we  are  to  understand  by  Q  ?  Or  does  the  formula 
indicate  some  underl3ring  basis  of  that  apostle's  work  ? 
Even  then  the  question  remains,  and  there  seems  no 
probability  of  any  immediate  consensus  of  opinion  on  the 
part  of  scholars,  whether  Q  consisted  entirely  of  discourse 
or  whether  it  contained — be  it  St.  Matthew's  work  or  not — 
some  admixture  of  narrative.  If  some  agreement  on 
terms  could  be  arrived  at  by  scholars,  the  Synoptic 
Problem  would  come  appreciably  nearer  solution. 

Collections  of  precepts  spoken  by  their  Master  would 
commend  themselves  very  early  to  the  disciples.  The 
treasuring  up  of  sajdngs  uttered  by  Rabbis  was  already  a 
common  habit  among  the  Jews,  and  that  the  followers  of 
Jesus  should  do  the  same  was  but  natural  under  any 
circumstances.  But  there  was  a  certain  character  about 
the  sayings  of  Jesus  which  made  them  specially  hkely  to 
be  early  thrown  together  into  some  sort  of  collection. 
They  were  terse,  pointed,  epigrammatic  apophthegms 
which  could  easily  be  retained  in  the  memory.  They 
were  didactic  rather  than  historical,  inasmuch  as  they 
dealt  with  universal  truths,  and  had  a  distinctly  moral 


I 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  39 

and  spiritual  application.  They  might  be  expanded  into 
what  we  call  a  '  parable,'  but  the  unity  of  the  parable  was 
always  some  central  truth,  to  which  all  other  details  were 
but  setting  and  scenery.  Many  of  the  most  striking 
of  the  sayings  were  in  fact  interpretations  of  the  Mosaic 
Law,  which  sounded  a  note  far  deeper  and  truer  than 
those  to  which  the  Jews  had  become  accustomed  in 
Rabbinical  schools.  When  the  earHest  Christians  assembled 
together  to  partake  of  the  Agape,  we  may  feel  quite  sure 
that  the  sayings  of  the  Master  would  form  the  text  of  many 
a  discourse,  or  they  might  be  committed  to  memory  in 
the  catechetical  schools  which  were  early  estabHshed.  In 
the  course  of  time  a  considerable  number  of  these  sayings 
would  be  in  vogue,  and  the  collections  would  be  continually 
growing,  as  devout  men  and  women  called  to  remembrance 
sajdngs  which  their  Master  had  uttered.  In  such  a  method 
of  compilation  there  was  room  for  a  certain  amount  of 
variety  in  the  form  in  which  the  sajdngs  were  recorded. 
Some  memories  would  be  more  accurate  than  others,  and 
while  the  general  idea  was  the  same,  there  would  be  a 
difference  of  expression  when  the  same  saying  was  given 
by  this  one  and  by  that.  It  was  also  inevitable  that  a 
piety  which  was  more  imaginative  than  accurate  would 
put  forth  as  sayings  thoughts  which  belonged  to  their  own 
minds,  and  had  never  been  spoken  by  Christ  at  aU,  and  a 
considerable  number  of  spurious  sayings  would  come  into 
existence  in  this  way.  If  the  question  be  asked  how  it  is 
that  no  such  collection  has  survived,  the  answer  would 
probably  be  found  to  he  in  the  fact  that  such  collections 
were  unauthorised,  arbitrary,  and  exposed  to  the  uncer- 
tainties attending  such  collections.  A  study  of  the 
sayings  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  apocrjrphal  Gospels 
reveals  many  which  it  is  difl&cult  to  accept  as  having  been 
spoken  by  our  Lord.  One  such  may  be  cited.  It  is 
quoted  by  Origen  from  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews. 
'  The  Saviour  Himself  says  :   "  Just  now  the   Holy  Spirit 


40  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

my  Mother,  took  me  by  one  of  my  hairs,  and  carried  me 
away  to  the  great  mountain  Tabor  "  '  (Origen,  In  Johann. 
ii.  6).  The  gulf  between  such  a  saying  and  those  which 
appear  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  immeasurable. 
At  the  same  time  we  may  feel  quite  sure  that  the  necessity 
would  be  quickly  felt  of  sifting  this  increasing  quantity 
of  puerile  and  unworthy  sayings,  and  the  task  of  doing 
this  seems  to  have  fallen  in  the  first  instance  to  St. 
Matthew.  Later  on  another  attempt  was  made  by  St. 
Luke,  or  by  some  unknown  compiler  whose  work  St.  Luke 
adopted,  and  as  soon  as  these  'Authorised  Versions,'  as 
we  may  call  them,  came  into  existence,  their  obvious 
superiority  would  quickly  lead  to  the  disappearance  of 
inferior  collections. 

It  is  necessary  to  repeat  here  the  often  quoted  passage 
from  Eusebius  in  which  this  work  of  St.  Matthew's  is 
described.  It  is  given  as  a  statement  made  by  Papias, 
and  occurs  in  the  Ecclesiastical  History  (iii.  39).  *  So  then 
Matthew  composed  the  Logia  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
and  each  one  interpreted  them  as  he  was  able.'  It  is  to 
be  noted  that  in  this  passage  we  have  a  variant  reading ; 
the  word  cn)V€y/3a^aTo=' caused  to  be  written'  appearing 
in  some  MSS.  instead  of  a-vveTa^aro  '  caused  to  be  drawn 
up.'  Dr.  Arthur  Wright  prefers  the  reading  o-uveraJaTo 
as  fitting  in  better  with  the  idea  of  an  oral  basis  for  this 
source.  But  even  if  crweTd^aro  be  preferred,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  a  definite  compilation  could  be  secured  unless 
the  sayings  were  given  in  writing.  Another  indirect 
allusion  to  the  same  work  seems  to  be  given  by  Papias 
when,  referring  to  St.  Mark's  memoirs  of  St.  Peter's  preach- 
ing, he  says  that  Peter  adapted  his  instructions  to  the 
needs  of  his  hearers,  but  had  no  design  of  giving  '  a  con- 
nected account  of  the  Lord's  Logia.'  ^  Here,  presumably, 
we  are  led  to  infer  that  the  eUipse  may  be  supphed,  '  as 
St.  Matthew  had  done.'     It  is  to  be  noticed  again  that  in 

1  ffCyra^iy,  cf.  a-vverd^aTo  in  the  former  quotation. 


in.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  41 

this  passage  too  there  is  a  variant  reading,  some  MSS. 
giving  Aoyo)!/  instead  of  Xoy'nav. 

In   considering   these  references   to   the   work   of    St. 
Matthew,  we  notice — 

1.  That  it  was  originally  written  in  Aramaic.    This  is 

borne  out  by  other  statements  made  both  by 
Origen  and  Irenaeus.  It  follows  from  this  that  if 
the  first  Gospel  contains  St.  Matthew's  contribution 
to  the  Gospel  story,  it  had  been  translated  into 
Greek  before  it  was  added  to  the  Markan  narrative 
which  the  first  Gospel  undoubtedly  contains. 

2.  St.  Matthew's  work  was  not  a  mere  collection  or 

accumulation  of  sayings.  There  was  some  method 
and  plan  in  the  matter.  He  arranged  the  sayings. 
The  word  orwcTaJaTo  seems  to  indicate  some 
classification  or  distribution  of  the  sayings,  and 
a   more   or  less  topical  arrangement  is   at   once 


3.  The  phrase  *  each  one  interpreted  them  as  he  was 
able '  points  to  the  use  of  these  sajdngs  in  the 
assemblies  of  the  Christian  congregations,  as  we 
have  already  suggested.  They  formed  exegetical 
material  for  moral  and  spiritual  exhortations  in 
the  earhest  Church,  as  they  still  do  in  the  later 
Church  of  our  own  times. 

Now  when  we  turn  from  these  Patristic  references  to 
the  Gospel  itself  we  are  at  once  struck  with  the  fact  that  it 
contains  a  considerable  number  of  sections  which  come 
under  the  description  of  such  a  word  as  Logia,  if  we 
interpret  that  word  in  the  sense  of  an  utterance  more  or 
less  of  an  oracular  character.  These  sections  are  sharply, 
it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  almost  mechanically,  divided 
from  the  Markan  narrative  in  which  they  are  inserted. 
Many  of  them  are  terse  and  epigrammatic,  admirably  con- 
structed for  remaining  in  the  memory  of  those  who  listened 


42  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

to  them.  Others  are  more  in  the  character  of  a  discourse, 
while  others  again  take  the  form  of  a  parable.  All,  how- 
ever, either  enunciate  or  interpret  great  spiritual  or  moral 
laws.  They  deal  with  what  is  universal  rather  than  local, 
and  have  to  do  with  the  inner  spirit  rather  than  the  out- 
ward expression  of  rehgious  thought.  The  question  has 
never  been  fully  discussed  whether  these  sayings  as  they 
exist  in  the  first  Gospel  constitute  the  work  of  St.  Matthew 
as  described  by  Papias.  Most  scholars  content  them- 
selves with  saying  that  the  Logia  of  that  apostle  are  lost, 
and  that  these  sections  of  the  first  Gospel  are  derived  from 
Q.  With  reference  to  this  source  again  there  is  the  greatest 
uncertainty.  Some  hold  that  while  it  consisted  for  the 
most  part  of  discourses,  it  nevertheless  contained  a  certain 
amount  of  narrative.  Even  here  there  is  uncertainty,  for 
some  would  assign  to  it  a  Passion  narrative.  Others, 
like  Hamack,  cannot  agree  that  it  contained  an  account  of 
our  Lord's  Passion  and  Resurrection,  and  yet  they  assign 
to  it  an  account  of  the  ministry  of  the  Baptist,  and  the 
story  of  our  Lord's  Temptation,  and  even  an  account 
of  the  heahng  of  the  Centurion's  servant.  Dr.  Allen  very 
pertinently  asks  what  an  account  of  the  preaching  of  the 
Baptist,  or  of  the  healing  of  the  Centurion's  servant,  has 
to  do  in  a  collection  of  discourses.  Harnack  points  out 
that  while  much  attention  has  been  given  to  the  Markan 
element  in  the  Gospels,  comparatively  Httle  has  been 
directed  towards  a  definition  of  Q.  A  definition  of  this 
source  he  himself  attempts  in  a  work,  to  which  frequent 
reference  will  be  made  by  the  present  writer,  but  by 
assuming  that  Q  consists  of  the  whole  of  the  non-Markan 
element  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels,  and  by  the  further 
assumption  (imphed  by  the  use  of  the  same  formula  to 
denote  the  source  of  both)  that  their  authors  used  a  common 
document,  he  does  not  really  carry  us  very  much  further 
towards  a  solution  of  the  problem.  The  importance  of  the 
problem,  as  well  as  its  difficulty,  can   scarcely  be   over- 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  43 

estimated.  Its  solution  will  affect  even  our  conclusions 
with  regard  to  the  Markan  question,  which  Harnack  says 
has  been  treated  with  scientific  thoroughness.  For,  at 
present,  sections  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  are  assigned 
to  Q  which  may  after  all  be  found  to  belong  to  that  form 
of  the  Markan  narrative  which  the  evangehsts  who  com- 
piled those  Gospels  used.  The  question  really  turns  upon 
whether  Q  is  to  be  considered  to  be  one  document  common 
to  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  and  whether  it  is  to  be  held 
to  contain  narrative  as  well  as  discourse.  In  approaching 
this  question  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  attempt  to  come 
to  some  decision  with  reference  to  the  use  of  the  word 
Xoyiov,  Etjmiologically  it  would  be  most  natural  to  take 
it  to  denote  something  spoken,  and  as  a  diminutive  of 
A.oyos  it  would  stand  for  some  brief  utterance  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  lengthy  or  reasoned  statement.  As 
such  it  was  used  to  describe  the  utterances  associated 
with  oracular  shrines  such  as  that  at  Delphi,  and  if  the 
use  of  the  word  could  be  thus  Hmited  we  should  have 
no  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  conclusion.  In  1875  Dr. 
Ldghtfoot  pubHshed  his  Essays  on  Supernatural  Religion, 
and  in  these  the  student  will  find  a  discussion  of  the  use 
of  this  word  marked  by  the  scholarship  and  research 
which  we  generally  associate  with  Lightfoot's  name.  In 
this  he  contends  that  though  the  word  was  used  to  describe 
'  oracles,'  properly  so  called,  yet  from  the  time  of  Philo 
onwards  it  was  used  to  cover  a  much  wider  connotation, 
and  that  it  was  used  by  Philo  and  others  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  use  the  word  '  Scripture,'  denoting  thereby  both 
historical  incident  and  didactic  matter.  It  is  certainly 
so  used  by  St.  Paul  in  Romans  iii.  2.  But  while  we  shall 
agree  that  this  use  of  the  word  was  not  uncommon  in  the 
time  when  Papias  wrote,  he  may  quite  well  have  used  it 
in  the  equally  well-known  sense  of  '  oracle.'  In  the  writings 
of  Clement  of  Rome  the  word  is  used  together  with  ypa<fiat, 
as  though  that  writer,  in  order  that  he  might  give  a  more 


44  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

comprehensive  expression  covering  both  history  and 
discourse,  used  both  the  terms  side  by  side.  Lightfoot's 
contention  is  well  discussed  by  Sir  John  Hawkins 
{Ox.  St.,  p.  105),  and  his  conclusion  is  as  follows  :  '  I  think 
that  if  a  person  who  has  freed  himself,  as  it  is  not  difficult 
to  do  now,  from  all  bias  on  either  side,  will  take  concord- 
ances and  indexes  and  will  examine  for  himself  the  forty- 
six  places  in  which  Xoycov  occurs  in  the  LXX  or  in  the 
Hexaplaric  fragments,  the  four  places  in  the  New  Testament, 
the  five  places  in  Clement  (Rom.  i.  and  ii.)  and  Polycarp, 
and  the  two  in  Justin  Martjnr,  he  will  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  sense  which  a  Christian  writer  of  the  date  of 
Papias  would  (apart  from  any  special  reason  to  the 
contrary)  naturally  attach  to  the  word  is  that  of  a  divine 
or  sacred  utterance.  And  this  seems  to  be  an  opinion 
widely  and  increasingly  held  by  recent  English  writers.' 
To  the  present  writer  this  conclusion  seems  inevitable; 
and  I  shall  therefore  assume  that  if  we  are  to  seek  for  the 
Matthaean  contribution  in  the  first  Gospel,  we  must  look 
for  '  sayings  '  properly  so  called,  and  where  we  find  words 
of  Jesus  which  occur  in  describing  some  incident  in  His 
ministry  they  must  be  held  over  for  the  time  as  not  belong- 
ing to  the  Matthaean  part  of  the  Gospel,  until  we  are  able 
to  assign  them  to  some  other  of  the  different  elements 
which  go  to  make  up  the  first  Gospel. 

If  sayings  of  our  Lord  were  from  an  early  date  recited 
and  expounded  in  the  Church,  and  afterwards  collected 
and  written  down,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  question  should 
arise  whether  indications  of  such  sayings  are  to  be  found 
elsewhere  than  in  the  two  Gospels  in  which  they  appear 
so  conspicuously.  The  answer  is  distinctly  affirmative. 
There  are  traces  of  such  both  in  the  canonical  writings  of 
the  New  Testament  and  in  the  writings  that  belong  to 
the  sub-apostohc  period  of  Church  history,  and  the  evidence 
which  these  afford  has  been  greatly  strengtliened  by  recent 
discoveries  in  'Egypt.    If  we  could  put  ourselves  in  the 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  46 

place  of  those  for  whom  the  New  Testament  writings 
were  first  prepared,  we  should  doubtless  find  that  many 
of  the  moral  or  spiritual  exhortations  contained  in  the 
Epistles  were  the  more  pointed  and  authoritative,  because 
they  were  at  once  recognised  as  echoes  of  famihar  words 
spoken  first  by  Him  who  remained  the  great  Master  of 
Assembhes.  Thus  St.  Paul  in  writing  to  the  Corinthian 
Church  impresses  upon  them  the  importance  of  celebrating 
the  Lord's  Supper,  and  in  doing  so  uses  words  which  are 
not  found  in  the  institution  of  that  Supper  as  recorded 
in  the  Gospels,  though  a  suggestion  of  them  occurs  in  the 
account  given  by  St.  Luke.  '  As  often,'  he  writes,  *  as 
ye  eat  this  bread,  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  proclaim  the 
Lord's  death  until  He  come.'  Now  these  words  are  given 
in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  as  words  of  Christ  Himself, 
and  the  phraseology  is  identical  with  that  which  appears 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  They  also  appear  as 
distinct  words  of  Jesus  in  several  ancient  hturgies,  and  it 
thus  seems  probable  that  St.  Paul  uses  these  words  as 
conveying  an  injunction,  already  famihar  to  those  to 
whom  he  wrote,  and  authoritative,  as  being  recorded 
words  of  Christ  Himself.  There  are  many  other  moral 
injunctions  in  the  Epistles  which  are  given  as  words  of 
Christ  in  non-canonical  writings,  but  it  seems  uncertain 
whether  in  the  latter  they  are  cited  as  the  words  of  the 
Lord  because  they  occur  in  the  Scriptures.  It  is  possible 
that  they  are  repetitions  of  the  Pauhne  injunction  rather 
than  taken  from  some  source  common  to  St.  Paul  and  to 
the  Father  who  uses  them.  We  are  on  much  surer 
ground  when  we  turn  to  the  well-known  passage  in  Acts 
XX.  35  where  St.  Paul  is  represented  as  bidding  the 
Ephesian  elders  '  remember  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
how  He  Himself  {avros)  said,  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive."  '  These  words  occur  in  no  edition  of  the 
Gospels.  They  are  quoted  by  Epiphanius  {Haer.  74.  5), 
and  they  also  appear  in  the  Constitutions.    There  can  be 


46  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

no  reasonable  doubt  that  they  are  a  genuine  Logion  of 
Jesus,  and  their  use  by  St.  Paul  offers  presumptive  evidence 
that  he  may  have  used  others,  even  though  he  did  not 
specifically  declare  their  origin  as  in  this  case.  Another 
hkely  saying  given  by  St.  Paul  occurs  in  Ephesians  iv.  26  : 
*  Let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your  wrath.'  It  is  true 
that  St.  Paul  does  not  ascribe  the  words  to  Jesus,  but  the 
somewhat  formal  way  in  which  Origen  does  so  in  his 
Dialogue  {De  recta  Fide),  '  The  Lord,  being  good,  says, 
"  The  sun,  let  it  not  go  down  upon  your  wrath,"  indicates 
that  he  at  any  rate  considered  the  words  to  have  been 
spoken  by  Jesus. 

Another  passage  generally  accepted  as  an  unrecorded 
'  sajdng '  is  given  by  St.  James  where  he  speaks  (i.  12)  of 
'  the  crown  of  Ufe  which  the  Lord  hath  promised  to  them 
that  love  Him.'  No  such  '  sapng  '  occurs  in  the  Gospels, 
but  the  phrase  '  the  crown  of  hfe '  occurs  in  Rev.  ii.  10, 
and  the  use  of  the  definite  article,  both  here  and  in  the 
Epistle  of  St.  James,  suggests  that  the  phrase  had  become 
familiar  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  that  the  promise 
possessed  a  sanction  which  could  only  have  been  derived 
from  Christ.  There  are  other  injunctions  in  the  Epistle  of 
St.  James  as  there  are  in  St.  Paul's  writings  which  read  hke 
'  sayings '  woven  into  the  exhortations  of  the  writer,  but 
it  is  unnecessary  to  refer  to  any  except  those  that  can 
fairly  be  claimed  as  examples  of  unrecorded  '  sayings,' 
and  a  single  instance  is  enough  for  our  present  contention 
that  such  '  sajdngs  '  were  used  in  the  early  Church. 

A  striking  and  often  quoted  Logion  is  found  in  the 
great  Cambridge  Codex  known  by  the  name  of  Codex 
Bezae.  In  the  sixth  chapter  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  where 
our  Lord  is  represented  as  in  controversy  with  the  Pharisees 
on  the  subject  of  the  keeping  of  the  Sabbath,  the  following 
words  occur  :  '  On  the  same  day,  seeing  a  man  working  on 
the  Sabbath,  He  said  to  him,  O  man,  if  thou  knowest 
what  thou  doest,  blessed  art  thou ;   but  if  thou  knowest 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  47 

not,  thou  art  accursed  and  a  transgressor  of  the  law.' 
The  sajdng  is  one  of  extraordinary  force,  and  is  a  distinct 
echo  of  such  teaching  as  our  Lord  is  said  to  have  given  in 
such  passages  as  Matthew  xii.  12,  in  which  He  shows  that 
there  were  certain  works  which  might  be  done  with 
deliberation  on  the  Sabbath  day.  It  upholds  the  spirit 
of  the  law,  while  it  shows  a  proper  reverence  for  that  well- 
being  of  mankind  which  our  Lord  maintains  is  the  true 
purpose  of  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  when  He  says  '  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man.'  The  passage  in  Codex 
Bezae  is  one  of  the  many  interpolations  famiHar  in  the 
so-called  Western  Text.  We  cannot  accept  it  as  belonging 
to  St.  Luke's  original  writing.  It  was  probably  inserted 
at  an  early  date,  but  its  appearance  again  bears  out  our 
contention  that  such  sayings  formed  part  of  the  treasured 
inheritance  of  the  early  Church,  and  might  or  might  not 
be  included  in  the  canonical  Gospels.  We  must  content 
ourselves  with  two  instances  from  Patristic  writings. 
The  former  of  them  we  take  from  Origen,  who  says  in  one 
of  his  Homilies  {On  Jerem.  xx.  3) :  '  Moreover  the  Saviour 
Himself  says,  He  that  is  near  Me  is  near  the  fire  ;  and  he 
who  is  far  from  Me,  is  far  from  the  kingdom.'  The  sajdng 
must  be  interpreted  in  very  general  terms  to  mean  that 
while  the  greater  danger  lay  in  being  far  removed  from 
Christ,  yet  proximity  to  Him  who  came  to  send  fire  upon 
earth  would  mean  a  cleansing  fire  to  one  who,  as  St.  Paul 
said,  built  with  wood,  hay,  or  stubble.  But  whatever  the 
interpretation  of  this  sajdng  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  Origen  considered  it  to  be  a  real  saying  of  our  Lord. 
The  second  is  also  from  Origen,  though  it  is  quoted  by 
several  others  of  the  Patristic  writers.  Origen  says  {On 
John,  xix.  2),  '  The  command  of  Jesus  which  says.  Become 
ye  approved  bankers.'  In  the  Pistis  Sophia  also  we  read, 
*  The  Saviour  of  Mary  repHes,  "  I  said  to  you  of  old.  Be 
ye  as  prudent  bankers,  take  the  good,  cast  out  the  bad."  ' 
And  Chrysostom,  after  giving  the  Logion,  says,  '  Not  that 


48  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

ye  should  stand  in  the  market-place  and  count  silver  coins, 
but  that  ye  may  test  your  words  with  all  exactness ' 
{Chrysostom,  v.  844) .  The  above  may  be  taken  as  examples, 
which  might  be  considerably  augmented,  of  sajdngs  which 
were  attributed  to  our  Lord,  and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that 
they  all  possess  the  common  characteristics  of  terse  moral 
injunctions  conveyed  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  easily  carried 
in  the  memory.  It  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  sHght 
difference  between  these  and  those  which  appear  in  the 
Gospels,  but  this  difference  may  be  due  to  our  famiharity 
with  those  that  are  extant  in  the  Scriptures,  and  they 
certainly  differ  much  more  from  the  extravagant  and 
puerile  sayings  often  attributed  to  Christ  in  the  Apocr3rphal 
Gospels.  But  whether  they  are  genuine  or  not  does  not 
make  much  difference  to  our  argument,  which  is  that  it 
was  well  known  that  from  earHest  times  sayings  of  a 
certain  character  were  attributed  to  our  Lord,  and  that 
these  were  treasured  in  the  memory  of  the  faithful,  and 
were  freely  quoted  in  homihes  delivered  to  the  Church. 

These  indications  of  the  use  of  the  Lord's  sayings  received 
additional  significance  by  the  discovery  in  1897  of  a  leaf 
of  papyrus  containing  eight  sayings  similar  in  character 
yet  differing  from  those  which  were  extant  before.  They 
were  discovered  by  Messrs.  Grenf ell  and  Hunt  in  the  village 
of  Oxyrh3nichus,  south  of  Cairo,  and  were  speedily  given 
to  the  world  in  an  edition  in  which  the  lacunae,  or  gaps  in 
the  text  caused  by  the  breaking  away  of  the  papyrus, 
were  tentatively  filled  up  by  capable  scholars.  The 
sayings  have  no  sort  of  connection  with  one  another ; 
each  is  entirely  detached,  and  is  introduced  by  the  simple 
formula,  '  Jesus  saith.'  No  historical  framework  was 
considered  necessary  for  the  different  sayings,  each  was 
recorded  for  its  independent  value,  and  the  whole  collection 
would  probably  be  used  for  purposes  of  meditation  by  some 
early  Christian.     The  sa3dngs  are  as  follows  : — 

1.  Jesus  saith,  Except  ye  fast  to  the  world,  ye  shall  in 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  49 

nowise  find  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  except  ye 
make  the  Sabbath  a  real  Sabbath,  ye  shall  not  see 
the  Father. 

2.  Jesus  saith,  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  world,  and  in 

the  flesh  was  I  seen  of  them  ;  and  I  found  all  men 
drunken,  and  none  found  I  athirst  among  thtjm. 
And  my  soul  grieveth  over  the  sons  of  men,  because 
they  are  bHnd  in  their  heart,  and  see  not  their 
wretchedness  and  their  poverty. 

3.  Jesus  saith,  Wherever  there  are  two,  they  are  not 

without  God ;  and  wherever  there  is  one  alone, 
I  say  I  am  with  him.  Raise  the  stone  and  there 
thou  shalt  find  me ;  cleave  the  wood  and  there 
am  I. 

4.  Jesus  saith,  A  prophet  is  not  acceptable  in  his  own 

country ;  neither  doth  a  physician  work  cures 
upon  those  who  know  him. 

5.  Jesus  saith,  A  city  built  upon  the  top  of  a  high  hill, 

and  estabUshed,  cannot  fall  nor  be  hidden. 

6.  Jesus  saith.  Thou  hearest  with  one  ear  (but  the  other 

thou  hast  closed). 

7.  .  .  .  And  then  shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  cast  out  the 

mote  that  is  in  thy  brother's  eye. 

8.  .  .  .  Poverty.  .  .  . 

The  editors  of  these  striking  sayings  have  put  forward 
the  following  propositions  : — 

1.  The  sayings  were  part  of  a  collection  of  sayings,  not 

extracts  from  a  Gospel. 

2.  They  were  independent  of  our  Four  Gospels  in  their 

present  shape. 

3.  They  were  put  together  earfier  than  a.d.  140,  and  it 

might  be  in  the  first  century. 

4.  They  do  not  belong  to  heretical  writings. 

These  propositions  seem  to  have  met  with  general  accept- 

D 


60  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

ance,  and  there  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  they  form 
part  of  some  collection  loosely  strung  together  for  didactic 
or  devotional  purposes.  Their  independence  of  canonical 
Scripture  is  full  of  significance.  The  collector,  whoever 
he  was,  had  access  to  some  other  source  than  that  which 
is  furnished  by  our  Gospels,  and  if  there  was  one  there  may 
have  been  many  in  the  earUest  Church.  They  differ  in 
tone  and  spirit  from  the  great  majority  of  those  which 
appear  in  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  the 
Ebionite  Gospel,  and  other  apocryphal  writings.  Now  as 
soon  as  we  consider  these  sayings  thus  put  together  we  are 
bound  to  recall  the  statement  made  by  Papias,  and  already 
quoted,  as  to  a  collection  of  the  sajdngs  of  our  Lord  which 
Matthew  made  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  and  on  which 
Papias  himseK  is  said  to  have  written  a  commentary. 
The  question  arises  whether  that  collection  of  St.  Matthew's 
could  have  been  anjrthing  of  this  sort.  If  the  phraseology 
of  Papias,  as  quoted  by  Eusebius,  can  be  rehed  upon,  the 
answer  must  be  in  the  negative.  For  the  word  o-vi/rajis 
indicates  some  sort  of  arrangement,  and  not  a  mere 
accumulation  of  disjointed  utterances  such  as  we  have 
here.  It  will  be  further  shown  that  we  have  in  the  first 
Gospel  something  which  comes  much  nearer  to  the  de- 
scription of  St.  Matthew's  work  which  Papias  gives  us. 

When  we  turn  from  these  '  sayings '  to  those  which  are 
recorded  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels,  we  see  that  the 
latter  can  be  placed  under  two  categories.  We  have 
sayings  which  spring  out  of  some  incident,  and  the 
narration  of  the  incident  is  necessary  for  discovering  the 
point  of  the  saying.  The  words  spoken  by  Christ,  for 
instance,  in  connection  with  His  temptation,  require  what 
we  may  call  the  historical  setting  before  they  become 
intelUgible  to  us  ;  and  when  He  says  of  the  Centurion 
'  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel,'  the 
statement  is  without  point  unless  we  read  it  in  connection 
with  the  request  of  the  Centurion.   Such  sayings,  too,  lack 


in.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  61 

the  *  oracular '  character  which  others  reveal.  They  deal 
with  special  instances  rather  than  with  universal  truths. 
We  have  urged  elsewhere,  in  connection  with  the  supposed 
use  of  Q  by  St.  Mark,  that  the  appearance  of  words  spoken 
by  our  Lord  when  performing  a  miracle,  or  when  deaHng 
with  those  who  sought  Him,  does  not  necessarily  imply 
derivation  from  a  collection  of  sayings  properly  so  called, 
and  the  Synoptic  Problem  will  have  come  appreciably 
nearer  solution  if  scholars  can  agree  to  distinguish  between 
statements  of  our  Lord  made  in  the  course  of  His  common 
intercourse  with  men,  and  those  which  He  made  when  He 
dealt  with  great  underlying  principles  of  Hfe  and  godliness. 
These  last  belong  to  the  second  of  our  two  categories. 
They  resemble  in  form  and  structure  those  which  we  have 
discovered  in  the  Epistles  and  in  extra- canonical  writings, 
and  there  is  a  strong  likeness  between  them  and  those 
discovered  at  Oxyrhynchus.  They  are  independent  of 
any  setting  of  narrative  or  historical  statement.  Any  of 
them  may  quite  well  be  found  in  a  catalogue  of  apophthegms 
needing  no  other  introduction  than  that  which  has  now 
become  famihar — '  Jesus  saith.'  Sayings  that  belong  to 
the  former  class  may  then  be  accounted  for  in  connection 
with  some  narrative  source,  and  we  may  consider  with 
reference  to  the  second  whether  or  no  there  are  indications 
of  some  collection  or  collections  of  '  oracles '  that  will 
account  for  those  features  of  both  the  first  and  third 
Gospels  which  differentiate  them  from  the  second.  If  it 
be  possible  to  account  for  the  former  class  as  belonging 
to  a  narrative  source,  then  the  term  Q  could  be  used  for 
the  second,  and  if  this  could  become  the  universal  custom 
of  scholars  the  gain  would  be  very  great,  for,  as  we  have 
shown,  there  is  no  common  use  of  terms  at  present,  and 
'  Q '  seems  to  represent  some  sort  of  receptacle  to  which 
are  relegated  all  the  bits  and  ends  of  Gospel  sections,  the 
origin  of  which  seems  to  be  uncertain.  Dr.  Burkitt 
contends  that  Q  was  a  Gospel  now  irretrievably  lost,  but 


62  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

the  present  writer  holds  that  there  is  far  more  to  be  said 
for  Dr.  Sanday  when  he  writes  : — 

'  The  leading  purpose  of  this  httle  book  appears  to  have 
been  to  set  before  its  readers  some  account  of  the  Christian 
ideal,  the  character  and  mode  of  Hfe  expected  of  them  as 
Christians.  It  was  felt  that  this  could  best  be  done  by- 
collecting  together  a  number  of  typical  sajdngs  and  dis- 
courses of  Christ.  There  was  no  idea  of  writing  a  biography, 
and  not  even  in  this  case  of  composing  a  '  gospel '  (or  full 
statement  of  the  redeeming  acts  of  Christ),  but  only  a 
brief  exemplar  to  set  before  the  eyes  and  minds  of  con- 
verts' {Encyclo'pcBdia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol  i.  p.  575). 

Harnack  also  does  not  allow  that  Q  contained  a  Passion 
narrative,  and  states  that  it  was  no  Gospel  Hke  Matthew, 
Mark,  and  Luke,  though  it  was  not  a  mere  formless  com- 
pilation of  sayings  and  discourses  without  any  thread  of 
connection.  He  does,  however,  allow  that  it  contained 
the  story  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  with  its  closely  connected 
sequel,  the  temptation,  and  adds  to  these  the  account  of 
the  heahng  of  the  Centurion's  servant.  Dr.  Stanton  is  in 
general  agreement  with  this.  If  these  scholars  could  see 
their  way  to  remove  from  Q  the  narratives  above 
mentioned,  as  they  have  already  removed  the  story  of  the 
Passion,  the  question  of  these  sources  would  be  immensely 
simplified,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  fair  solution  of  a 
difficult  problem  would  come  at  last  into  sight. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  it  is  found  convenient  to 
relegate  the  stories  of  the  baptism,  the  temptation,  and  the 
heahng  of  the  Centurion's  servant  to  Q.  It  is  because  of 
the  great  difficulty  of  accounting  for  these  as  coming  from 
the  Markan  source,  always  supposing  that  by  '  the  Markan 
source '  we  are  to  imderstand  canonical  Mark.  The  last 
of  the  three  is  not  given  at  all  by  St.  Mark  in  the  second 
Gospel,  and  his  account  of  the  baptism  and  temptation 
is  so  exceedingly  brief,  as  compared  with  the  other  accounts, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  editors  of  the  first 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  63 

and  third  Gospels  took  the  liberty  of  amplifying  to  the 
extent  which  they  must  have  done  if  only  canonical  Mark 
was  before  them.  It  is  thought  better  to  refuse  a  Markan 
origin  for  these  sections,  and  if  we  ask  where  then  their 
source  is  to  be  found,  the  answer  is  'in  Q.'  I  would  urge 
that  this  avoidance  of  one  difficulty  only  leads  us  to  another. 
It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  see  what  an  account  of  the 
Baptist's  ministry  has  to  do  with  sajdngs  and  discourses 
of  Christ.  Our  Lord's  words  in  reply  to  the  Tempter  differ 
in  essential  characteristics  from  the  sayings  which  we  have 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  to  claim  that  the  word  '  I  have  not  found  so  great 
faith,  no,  not  in  Israel,'  belongs  to  a  collection  of  '  saying^' 
is  criticism  in  despair.  There  is  another  and  a  better  way 
out  of  this  difficulty,  It  is  to  accept,  what  I  hope  to  show 
has  very  much  in  its  favour,  that  St.  Mark  wrote  down  his 
memoirs  of  St.  Peter's  preaching  more  than  once,  and  that 
in  earUer  editions,  prepared  one  in  Palestine  and  the  other 
in  the  interests  of  a  Jewish-Christian  community,  a  full 
account  of  the  Baptist's  ministry,  and  of  his  relation  to 
our  Lord,  would  be  entirely  in  place ;  these  subjects, 
however,  would  be  mentioned  in  the  briefest  possible  way 
in  a  later  edition  prepared  in  Rome,  for  a  Church  which 
was  largely  Gentile.  These  earher  editions  would 
naturally  include  also  the  account  of  the  coming  of  the 
Centurion,  because  the  point  of  our  Lord's  words  on  that 
occasion  was  that  Israel  had  failed  to  evince  the  faith 
which  He  had  found  in  this  Gentile. 

We  may  account  for  the  inclusion  of  a  Passion  narrative 
in  Q  by  some  scholars,  though  not  by  any  means  by  all, 
in  the  same  way.  When  we  make  a  comparative  study  of 
the  three  accounts  of  our  Lord's  Passion,  we  find  that  the 
first  and  second  Gospels  are  in  close  correspondence,  but 
St.  Luke  obviously  departs  to  a  considerable  extent  from 
them,  and  he  departs  entirely  in  his  account  of  the  resur- 
rection  appearances    of   our   Lord.    The   question   then 


64  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

arises  :  if  he  did  not  derive  this  matter  from  St.  Mark, 
from  what  source  did  he  obtain  it  ?  Again  the  answer 
is  'from  Q,'  and  so  we  are  presented  with  the  theory 
that  this  collection  of  sayings  and  discourses  contained 
an  account  of  the  Passion.  Then  when  arguments  against 
this  are  brought  forward,  we  have  Dr.  Burkitt  rounding 
upon  his  critics  and  saying  :  '  I  find  it  difficult  to  beUeve 
that  a  critical  method  is  wholly  to  be  trusted,  which 
presents  us  with  a  document  that  starts  off  with  the  story 
of  our  Lord's  Baptism,  and  then  gives  us  His  words  but 
not  the  story  of  His  Cross  and  Resurrection.'  To  my 
mind  Dr.  Burkitt  is  here  {Journ.  of  Theol.  Stud.,  p.  454) 
unanswerable,  but  a  truer  conclusion  than  that  which 
he  gives  us  seems  to  be  this — that  neither  the  Baptism  nor 
the  Passion  story  belongs  to  Q ;  that  the  one  belongs  to 
an  earher  edition  of  St.  Mark  than  that  which  we  have  in 
the  second  Gospel,  and  the  other  belongs  to  that  special 
source  which,  as  we  shall  show,^  St.  Luke  so  freely  used. 
I  would  therefore  strongly  urge  that  the  term  Q  be  reserved 
for  a  collection  of  sajdngs  properly  so  called,  and  that  all 
sections  which  contain  anything  of  narrative  which  is 
more  than  a  mere  introduction  be  assigned  to  some  other 
source.  Among  such  sections  would  certainly  be  found 
the  three  to  which  we  have  just  referred. 

But  having  got  as  far  as  this  we  are  confronted  by  a 
further  question.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  Q  thus  inter- 
preted stands  for  the  collection  of  our  Lord's  sayings  which 
we  learn  from  Papias  St.  Matthew  compiled  ?  Or  are  we 
to  use  the  term  Q  for  some  such  collection  as  that  of 
which  we  have  a  fragment  remaining  in  the  Oxyrhynchus 
Logia  ?  And  what  is  St.  Luke's  relation  to  this  collection  ? 
Did  he  use  the  Matthaean  collection  ?  Or  did  he  use,  as 
St.  Matthew  did,  some  collection  of  sa5dngs  which  he 
reduced  to  some  sort  of  order  ?  If  the  latter,  was  the 
collection  before  him  the  same  as,  or  other  than,  that 

1  See  chap.  vi. 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  65 

before  St.  Matthew  ?  To  these  questions  we  must  now 
address  ourselves. 

If  by  Q  we  are  to  understand  the  Matthaean  collection 
of  sayings,  then  it  will  follow  that  St.  Luke  used  St. 
Matthew  in  all  that  part  of  his  Gospel  which  contains  sayings 
of  Jesus,  and  against  this,  as  we  shall  see,  there  are  great 
objections  which  may  be  brought  whenever  we  say  that 
St.  Luke  derived  this  or  that  from  Q.  Further,  if  we  identify 
Q  with  the  Matthaean  collection,  and  if  this — as  Dr. 
Burkitt  and  others  maintain — is  no  longer  extant,  then  it 
is  difficult  to  see  why  St.  Matthew's  name  ever  came  to  be 
connected  with  the  first  Gospel.  The  Logian  sections  of 
the  first  Gospel  would  in  that  case  be  a  mere  selection 
from  the  work  of  that  apostle.  His  connection  with  the 
book  would  be  considerably  more  remote.  But  if  we 
present  ourselves  with  the  hypothesis  that  St.  Matthew 
had  before  him  one  of  the  many  loose  and  informal  col- 
lections of  sayings  of  which  the  Oxyrhynchus  papyrus 
is  a  t5rpe,  and  if  he  distributed  these  sayings  which  he  could 
accept  as  genuine  under  different  heads,  making  his  dis- 
tribution topical  in  its  scheme ;  if  further  this  o-vi^raf i?, 
so  far  from  being  lost,  actually  exists  in  the  first  Gospel, 
sandwiched  between  blocks  of  Markan  narrative,  we  shall 
at  once  account  for  the  statements  of  Papias,  and  also  for 
the  association  of  St.  Matthew's  name  with  the  first 
Gospel.  Before  such  a  hypothesis  can  be  accepted  it  must 
of  course  be  tested  in  the  light  of  what  is  given  us  in  the 
first  Gospel.  This  part  of  our  task  will  be  attempted  in 
the  chapter  in  which  we  discuss  that  Gospel  more  in  detail, 
but  for  the  sake  of  clearness  I  would  here  reconstruct  the 
history  of  the  production  of  the  first  Gospel  somewhat 
as  follows. 

The  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  began  to  be  quoted  and 
expounded  in  the  Christian  assembhes  at  a  very  early  date. 
To  facilitate  such  work,  and  also  for  the  purpose  of  private 
meditation  on  the  part  of  individual  Christians,  collections 


56  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  such  sayings  began  to  appear.  These  were  in  no  sort  of 
order,  nor  was  it  necessary  to  do  more  by  way  of  intro- 
ducing them  than  to  use  the  formula  '  Jesus  saith.'  But 
the  method  was  open  to  abuse.  The  sayings  could  not 
always  be  guaranteed,  and  spurious  sayings  began  to  be 
attributed  to  our  Lord.  St.  Matthew  then  undertook  the 
task  of  drawing  up  a  collection  of  true  sajdngs,  and  he 
did  so  in  their  original  Aramaic,  each  speaker  in  the 
Christian  assembhes  translating  or  expanding  them  as  he 
was  able.  In  this  way  fuU  justice  is  done  to  the  statement 
of  Papias  which  Eusebius  records.  But  when  Hellenistic 
Jews  began  to  enter  the  Christian  Church,  the  Aramaic, 
in  which  the  sayings  were  recorded,  was  felt  to  be  a 
difficulty,  and  at  a  comparatively  early  date  the  sayings 
were  translated  into  Greek.  In  this  form  they  found  their 
way  to  some  centre  in  which  there  were  a  number  of  Jewish 
Christians.  The  conditions  of  a  Church  in  Alexandria 
would  exactly  correspond  with  the  imaginary  conditions 
which  we  have  thus  laid  down.  But  that  Church  had 
other  treasures  than  this  collection  of  sayings.  St.  Mark 
had  been  one  of  its  first  '  bishops,'  and  he  had  even  before 
coming  to  Egypt  drawn  up  some  memoirs  of  St.  Peter's 
preaching.  That  he  would  do  so  again  for  the  Church  in 
Egypt  we  may  feel  assured,  and  for  some  time  the  two 
documents  would  exist  side  by  side.  The  arrangement, 
however,  was  awkward,  and  later  on  an  attempt  was  made 
to  join  the  two  documents,  and  at  the  same  time  to  add 
other  matter  which  had  come  to  hand.  This  was  done  in 
the  simplest  way  by  introducing  the  different  Matthaean 
sections  bodily  into  the  Markan  narrative,  at  such  points 
as  seemed  suitable,  and  a  simple  formula  was  used  to  form 
such  connections  as  were  felt  to  be  necessary  to  make  a 
single  volume  out  of  the  two. 

When  we  turn  from  the  first  Gospel  to  the  third  we 
notice  at  once  that  whether  St.  Luke  used  the  same  source 
as  St.  Matthew  did  or  not,  he  has  undoubtedly  distributed 


m.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  67 

his  material  on  a  different  principle.  St.  Matthew  has 
arranged  his  sayings  topically,  bringing  together  in  five 
sections  (though  some  critics  consider  the  number  to  be 
seven  and  others  eight)  what  he  considered  represented 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  each  section  having  a  theme  of  its 
own.  These  five  sections  are  discussed  in  the  chapter 
which  deals  with  the  first  Gospel.  St.  Luke,  however, 
arranged  his  Logian  material  not  topically  but  chronologi- 
cally, distributing  them  among  the  Markan  and  other 
sections  which  appear  in  his  Gospel  in  such  a  way  as  to 
give  the  impression  that  they  were  spoken  on  certain 
occasions  indicated  by  the  evangehst.  Thus,  to  take  a 
well-known  example,  St.  Matthew  places  the  Lord's  Prayer 
in  the  considerable  body  of  sajdngs  which  he  has  put 
together  and  which  we  call  '  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.' 
St.  Luke,  however,  shows  us  that  the  prayer  was  given  by 
our  Lord  quite  late  in  His  ministry,  on  an  occasion  when 
His  disciples  approached  Him  with  the  request  that  He 
would  teach  them  to  pray. 

It  is  generally  accepted  that  St.  Luke  no  less  than  St. 
Matthew  used  Q,  and  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  decide 
which  of  the  two  kept  the  closer  to  their  common  source, 
and  from  the  conclusion  arrived  at  it  is  generally  thought 
that  some  guidance  may  be  reached  with  a  view  to  the 
reconstruction  of  Q.  Thus  Dr.  Stanton  says  :  *  If  we  ask 
in  which  of  the  two  writers  the  contents,  of  a  document 
which  both  have  used,  or  two  editions  of  which  they 
respectively  used,  is  most  hkely  to  be  given  in  its  original 
order,  there  can  be  no  question  that  it  is  in  St.  Luke.' 
Dr.  Stanton  is  here  in  agreement  with  Dr.  Burkitt,  but  it 
is  to  be  noticed  that  both  of  these  critics  assume  Q  to  be  a 
document  containing  narrative  as  well  as  discourses,  and 
this,  as  we  have  shown,  is  a  point  to  be  settled  by  discussion, 
and  not  assumed.  If  the  source  underlying  the  Logian 
sections  of  the  two  Gospels  be,  as  we  prefer  to  regard  it, 
a  collection  of  sayings  without  order  or  definite  arrange- 


58  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [CH. 

ment,  or  rather  of  two  such  collections,  then  it  becomes 
unnecessary  to  discuss  which  of  the  two  adheres  the  more 
closely  to  the  original.  Schmiedel  seems  to  feel  this 
uncertainty,  for  he  contends  that  if  we  are  to  consider 
which  of  the  two  has  preserved  the  Logia  in  the  more 
original  form,  the  answer  must  be  that  it  is  sometimes  the 
one  and  sometimes  the  other.  Dr.  Plummer  has  pointed 
out  in  his  commentary  on  the  third  Gospel  that  absence 
or  scarcity  of  the  characteristics  of  St.  Luke  is  most  common 
in  the  matter  which  appears  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels, 
and  he  infers  from  this  that  where  the  materials  were 
already  in  Greek,  St.  Luke  would  use  them  without  any 
great  amount  of  alteration.  '  It  is  incredible  that  two 
or  three  independent  translations  should  agree  almost 
word  for  word.'  This,  however,  scarcely  a£fects  the  con- 
clusion at  which  we  have  arrived,  that  the  Logia  in  the  first 
Gospel  came  from  a  source  other  than  that  which  was  used 
by  St.  Luke,  for  none  of  the  passages  cited  by  Dr.  Plummer 
m  illustration  are  taken  from  the  five  great  blocks  of  sajdngs 
which  appear  in  the  first  Gospel.  The  fact  that  Lukan 
characteristics  are  most  lacking  in  passages  taken  from 
Logian  sections  would  indicate  St.  Luke's  special  reverence 
for  this  particular  source,  and  if  we  find  that  there  is  any 
considerable  difference  between  the  sajdngs  in  the  one 
Gospel  and  the  sayings  in  the  other,  we  may  safely  infer 
that  St.  Luke  did  not  use  the  same  collection  as  did  St. 
Matthew.  Now  this  is  precisely  what  we  do  find.  Dr. 
Stanton  indeed  points  out  that  the  degree  of  correspondence 
varies  in  the  third  Gospel,  that  in  some  passages  the  sayings 
are  identical,  and  in  others  there  is  more  difference.  He 
would  single  out  those  sa3dngs  in  which  the  correspondence 
is  so  close  as  to  lead  us  to  conclude  that  the  two  evangehsts 
used  a  common  source,  and  he  would  account  for  the 
sayings  in  which  there  is  more  difference  by  ascribing  that 
difference  to  conditions  affecting  the  translation  into 
Greek  of  the  Aramaic  collection  of  sayings.    But  may  not 


in.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  69 

the  explanation  be  a  far  simpler  one  ?  If  there  were  many 
attempts  to  set  forth  the  facts  of  our  Lord's  life  and 
teaching,  we  have  only  to  suppose  that  one  collection  of 
sayings  was  used  by  St.  Matthew  and  another  by  St.  Luke 
to  sufficiently  account  for  the  differences,  while  the 
character  of  these  sayings,  their  epigrammatic  form,  and 
the  reverence  in  which  such  sajdngs  would  be  held,  would 
completely  account  for  the  fact  that  some  sayings  would 
appear  in  the  one  collection  in  a  form  all  but  identical 
with  that  in  which  they  appear  in  the  other.  The  differ- 
ences, moreover,  are  too  great  for  us  to  account  for  them 
merely  on  the  score  of  translation.  The  different  versions 
of  the  Beatitudes  alone  is  sufficient  to  settle  this.  We 
may  feel  sure  that  in  this  section  least  of  all  would  St. 
Luke  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  amend  the  form  in  which 
he  found  the  sayings,  yet  his  version  differs  considerably 
from  that  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel.  In  the  section  of  St. 
Luke  which  most  corresponds  with  the  '  Sermon,'  as  given 
in  the  first  Gospel,  we  are  told  that  our  Lord  stood  upon  a 
level  place  where  St.  Matthew  speaks  of  '  the  mountain.' 
There  is  no  necessary  contradiction  in  this,  but  in  the 
sayings  which  follow  our  Lord  is  represented  as  speaking 
directly  to  His  disciples :  *  Blessed  are  ye  poor  .  .  . 
Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger,'  etc.,  while  in  the  first  Gospel 
the  form  is  more  general :  '  Blessed  are  the  poor,'  etc.  The 
number  of  Beatitudes  is  different.  There  are  only  four  in 
Luke,  while  there  are  nine  in  the  first  Gospel.  In  the  third 
Gospel  the  Beatitudes  are  followed  by  a  corresponding 
number  of  woes  which  do  not  appear  in  the  first  Gospel. 
Again,  the  Beatitudes  in  the  third  Gospel  are  simpler  in 
form  and  more  universal  in  appHcation,  while  in  the  other 
there  is  some  amount  of  interpretation  of  the  general 
truth  ;  thus  '  the  poor '  in  the  one  becomes  '  the  poor  in 
spirit '  in  the  other.  There  is  the  same  difference  in  the 
saying  in  which  *  salt '  is  used  to  convey  the  teaching.  St. 
Matthew  gives  us  the  Logion  as  follows  :    *  Ye  are  the  salt 


60  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  the  earth,  but  if  the  salt  lose  its  savour  wherewith 
shall  it  be  salted  ?  It  is  good  for  nothing  but  to  be  cast 
out  and  trodden  underfoot  of  men.'  This  appears  in  the 
third  Gospel  in  quite  another  setting  and  in  the  following 
form :  '  Salt  is  good,  but  if  even  the  salt  have  lost  its 
savour  wherewith  shall  it  be  seasoned  ?  It  is  fit  neither 
for  the  land  nor  for  the  dunghill ;  men  cast  it  out.' 

Instances  of  such  differences  may  easily  be  multipKed, 
but  these  will  suffice  to  show  the  difficulty  of  beheving 
that  St.  Luke  used  the  same  document  as  St.  Matthew 
did.  If  the  two  evangehsts  had  the  same  document  or 
even  two  editions  of  the  same  document  before  them, 
one  or  the  other  must  have  allowed  himself  an  amount 
of  freedom  in  transcribing  them  of  which  we  have  no 
evidence  elsewhere  in  their  respective  writings.  Neither 
can  we  beHeve  that  St.  Luke  would  have  taken  the  hberty 
to  separate  and  distribute  the  sayings  as  he  has  done,  if 
they  appeared  in  his  source  thrown  together  into  the  con- 
siderable '  blocks  '  in  which  they  appear  in  the  first  Gospel. 
Now  all  these  difficulties  disappear  in  a  moment  if  we  can 
accept  the  theory  that  the  two  evangehsts  had  before  them 
different  collections  of  sayings  thrown  together  without 
any  attempt  to  arrange  them  under  different  heads,  or  to 
indicate  the  occasion  on  which  each  was  spoken  by  Christ. 
The  freedom  in  that  case  would  be  readily  allowed  them  to 
arrange  these  as  each  thought  best.  St.  Matthew  preferred 
to  bring  together  those  which  bore  upon  some  aspect  or 
other  of  '  the  kingdom,'  St.  Luke  attempted  to  place 
each  in  its  chronological  setting.  The  form  of  the  saying 
will  account  for  whatever  hkeness  may  be  discovered 
between  the  two  versions ;  the  more  epigrammatic  it  was 
the  more  hkely  was  it  that  it  would  be  identical  in  the 
two  versions.  At  the  same  time,  the  fact  that  it  was 
written  down  by  different  persons  in  the  first  instance 
would  account  for  whatever  difference  may  appear  between 
the  two  versions.     The  two  sources,  we  are  convinced. 


ni.]  THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  61 

would  resemble  the  collection  discovered  at  Oxyrhynchus, 
and  just  as  in  that  collection  we  have  the  saying,  '  And  then 
shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  cast  out  the  mote  that  is  in  thy 
brother's  eye,'  which  has  a  great  amount  of  resemblance 
to  the  corresponding  logion  in  the  first  Gospel,  and  yet 
differs  from  it,  so  we  may  be  sure,  between  those  used  by 
St.  Luke  and  those  used  by  St.  Matthew,  there  would  be 
Ukeness  and  unlikeness.  They  would  be  hke  in  the 
essential  teaching,  and  yet  would  vary  in  the  form  of 
expression. 

We  conclude  then  that  if  the  formula  Q  be  still  used  to 
indicate  the  logion  source,  it  should  be  used  to  indicate  a 
far  more  simple  and  elementary  source  than  one  which, 
by  adding  narrative  to  logia,  would  partake  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  Gospel,  and  in  order  to  show  that  the  source 
used  by  one  evangehst  differed  from  that  used  by  the 
other,  we  should  make  the  further  differentiation  of  Q  (L) 
and  Q(M). 


62  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 


CHAPTER  lY 

THE  FIRST  GOSPEL 

In  discussing  the  many  questions  which  arise  out  of  a  study 
of  the  first  Gospel  we  shall  find  ourselves  obliged  to  repeat 
much  that  we  have  already  stated  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
for  the  problem  of  the  first  Gospel  is  bound  up  in  the 
problem  of  Q.  In  so  far  as  the  Markan  element  in  it  is 
concerned,  critics  have  arrived  at  a  fair  amount  of  agree- 
ment. Zahn  is  now  the  only  critic  of  eminence  who  main- 
tains that  the  first  Gospel  was  prior  to  the  second,  and  was 
used  by  St.  Mark.  He  does  so  largely  upon  the  considera- 
tion that  the  evidence  from  Papias  points  to  a  Hebrew 
Gospel  prepared  by  St.  Matthew,  and  this  Hebrew  original, 
he  maintains,  was  afterwards  translated  by  St.  Mark  into 
Greek.  He  thus  accounts  in  part,  but  not  entirely,  for 
differences  between  the  first-  and  second  Gospel  on  the 
ground  of  translation.  The  second  of  the  two  great 
arguments  he  brings  forward  refers  to  the  character  of  the 
contents  of  the  first  Gospel.  These  show  that  it  must 
have  been  written  for  Jewish  Christians,  and  therefore  it 
could  scarcely  be  dependent  upon  a  work  written  at  Rome 
and  for  Gentiles.  He  also  considers  that  in  Matthew 
'  the  material  stifles  the  thought.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  spite  of  numerous  infelicities  of  expression,  Mark  shows 
himself  a  master  in  clear  narrative,  in  his  ability  to  portray 
a  situation,  and  to  reproduce  with  exactness  trivial  details, 
which  in  the  memory  of  an  eye-witness,  are  inseparably 
connected  with  the  kernel  of  the  event.  If  this  is  true  it 
follows  that  Matthew  is  more  original.  It  would  be  in- 
conceivable that  with  the  narratives  of  Mark  before  him. 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  63 

which  for  the  most  part  are  very  clearly  drawn  and  accu- 
rate in  details,  he  should  have  obUterated  or  otherwise 
destroyed  those  characteristics  without  intending  either  to 
correct  errors  or  to  make  considerable  abridgment.'  ^ 

These  contentions  of  Zahn  have  often  been  met  and 
refuted.  The  student  will  find  an  admirable  discussion 
of  them  in  Dr.  Stanton's  work.^  We  shall  not  attempt 
to  go  over  the  same  ground,  but  we  would  point  out  that 
Zahn's  position  is  really  based  upon  two  assumptions  each 
of  which  fails  to  commend  itself.  The  former  of  the  two 
is  this,  that  by  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew  written  in  Hebrew 
we  are  to  understand  the  first  Gospel  as  it  stands  in  the 
Christian  canon.  A  far  better  interpretation  of  the  refer- 
ence in  Eusebius  is  that  which  considers  that  the  term 
Logia  is  to  be  used  not  of  a  Gospel,  but  of  a  collection  of 
sayings  uttered  by  our  Lord,  preserved  in  the  memory  of 
the  earhest  Church,  and  thrown  into  form  and  order  by 
St.  Matthew. 

The  second  assumption  is  that  when  we  speak  of  the 
priority  of  Mark  we  are  shut  up  to  the  idea  of  the  priority 
of  the  canonical  Gospel  known  by  that  name.  If  it  can  be 
shown  that  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  St.  Mark 
wrote  his  Gospel  more  than  once,  and  that  it  is  an  earher 
edition  which  is  contained  in  the  first  Gospel,  an  edition 
too  which  bears  distinct  signs,  as  Zahn  declares,  of  having 
been  prepared  in  the  interests  of  Jewish  Christians,  then  it 
follows  that  there  may  well  be  a  Markan  element  in  the 
first  Gospel  which  will  agree  with  the  rest  of  that  Gospel 
in  exhibiting  Jewish  characteristics,  and  in  maintaining 
a  '  unity  of  design,'  and  that  nevertheless  in  the  later 
canonical  Mark  we  shall  have  as  distinct  a  Gentile  reference 
and  as  great  a  richness  of  detail  as  that  which  Zahn,  quite 
correctly,  considers  to  belong  to  a  late  work. 

Accepting  then  the  idea  of  the  priority  of  Mark  as 

J  Intro,  to  the  New  Test.,  (Eng.  Trans.),  vol.  ii.  p.  606. 
2  P.  58  ff. 


64  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

established  in  this  sense,  we  proceed  to  mark  off  three 
main  sections  in  the  first  Gospel.     These  are  : 

1.  A  Nativity  section  consisting  of  chapters  i.  and  ii. 

2.  A   Markan   section   which   is   not   consecutive,    but 

is  arranged  alternately  with  blocks  of  matter  to 
which  the  description  '  discourses  '  may  be  assigned. 

3.  A    section    consisting    of    discourses.      These    are 

sandwiched  between  Markan  sections,  as  we  have 
said,  and  possess  distinct  characteristics  of  first- 
rate  importance  as  indicating  the  origin  and  purpose 
of  the  Gospel. 

In  addition  to  these  main  divisions  we  notice  that  the 
editor  of  the  Gospel  had  before  him  a  collection  of 
Messianic  proof- texts,  which  he  inserted  in  the  record 
wherever  he  thought  it  desirable  to  do  so.  These  must 
be  distinguished  from  quotations  from  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  made  by  our  Lord  Himself.  They  are  easily 
distinguished  as  belonging  rather  to  the  comment  of  the 
evangeHst  than  to  Christ,  and  they  are  usually  introduced 
by  the  formula  '  that  it  might  be  fulfilled,'  tVa  TrXtj pioOrJ, 
or  its  equivalent.  They  appear  in  the  following  passages  : 
i.  23,  ii.  6,  15,  18,  23,  iv.  14-16,  viii.  17,  xii.  17-21,  xiii.  35, 
xxi.  5,  xxvii.  9-10.  These  citations  greatly  intensify  the 
strong  Jewish  point  of  view  which  Zahn  and  others  dis- 
cover in  the  Gospel,  but  they  present  no  great  difficulty 
in  connection  with  the  Synoptic  Problem.  They  are 
clearly  interpolations,  taken  from  a  variety  of  sources 
some  of  which  are  not  to  be  discovered  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

Tho  Nativity  section  stands  alone.  There  are  Hnguistic 
peculiarities  such  as  the  use  of  '  behold,'  ISov,  after  a 
genitive  absolute  which  occur  only  in  these  chapters  ;  but 
apart  from  these  we  have  the  story  of  the  Massacre  of  the 
Innocents  and  the  flight  into  Egypt,  of  which  we  have 
no  mention  in  the  Nativity  section  of  the  third  Gospel. 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  66 

Further,  St.  Luke  places  the  home  of  the  holy  family  in 
Nazareth,  both  before  and  after  the  birth  of  our  Lord, 
while  St.  Matthew  says  that  the  home  was  in  Bethlehem, 
and  that  after  the  flight  into  Egypt  Joseph  removed  to 
Nazareth  from  fear  of  Archelaus.  But  above  all,  what 
makes  the  two  accounts  distinct  is  the  fact  that  the  one 
story  is  clearly  that  which  would  be  given  by  Joseph, 
while  that  in  St.  Luke  is  as  clearly  that  which  could  have 
been  derived  from  Mary  alone.  The  story  of  the  birth  of 
our  Lord  is  preceded  by  a  genealogical  table,  the  purpose 
of  which  seems  to  be,  as  Zahn  points  out,  not  so  much  to 
give  the  Davidic  descent  of  Jesus,  as  to  show  that  the 
Jesus  who  received  the  name  Messiah  was  '  the  goal  of 
the  entire  history  of  His  people.'  This  is  shown  by  the 
incompleteness  of  the  table  considered  as  a  Une  of  unbroken 
descent,  and  by  an  indication  of  '  the  change  brought 
about  in  the  Davidic  house  when  the  unity  of  the  family 
and  the  inheritance  of  the  promise  were  no  longer  repre- 
sented in  one  person  who  occupied  the  throne,  but  when 
what  was  once  the  royal  seed  continued  to  exist  only  as  a 
number  of  famiUes,  with  uncertainty  as  to  which  one 
would  enter  upon  the  inheritance.'  These  characteristics 
of  the  section  will  have  a  strong  determining  influence 
when  we  come  to  consider  the  circumstances,  local  and 
temporal,  in  which  this  Gospel,  as  a  whole,  was  produced, 
but  they  have  Httle  to  do  vsdth  the  Synoptic  Problem, 
which  is  mainly  concerned  with  the  inter-relations  of  the 
three  Gospels.  These  come  into  view  when  we  take 
account  of  the  three  main  questions,  which  are  : 

1.  To  what  extent  does  this  Gospel  depend  upon  Mark, 

and  what  is  the  relation  of  its  Markan  material  to 
the  corresponding  portion  of  the  third  Gospel  and 
also  to  canonical  Mark  ? 

2.  What   is    the    Matthaean    contribution    which    will 


66  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

account   for   the   traditional   title   given   to   this 
Gospel  ? 

3.  To  what  extent  is  it  dependent  upon  another  docu- 
ment (Q),  and  does  it  share  this  dependence  with 
Luke? 

These  three  questions  really  overlap.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  to  discuss  the  Markan  element  without  reference 
to  the  Matthaean,  for  what  cannot  be  assigned  to  the 
one  will  generally  find  its  place  in  the  other,  and  as  we 
have  seen,  our  definition  of  Q  involves  a  definition  of  the 
Matthaean  Logia.  It  is  the  overlapping  of  these  questions 
which  has  made  the  question  of  Gospel  Origins  appear  so 
hopeless  of  solution  to  the  general  reader.  To  us  the  clue 
out  of  the  labyrinth  is  to  be  found  in  a  phrase  which 
occurs  five  times,  and  always  in  passing  from  a  section 
containing  discourse  to  narrative.  That  phrase  occurs 
first  at  the  close  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  where  we 
read  (vii.  28),  'And  it  came  to  pass  when  Jesus  had 
ended  these  words  the  multitudes  were  astonished  at  His 
teaching.'  The  same  phrase,  or  a  variant  which  is  a 
distinct  equivalent,  occurs  also  at  xi.  I,  xiii.  53,  xix.  1,  and 
xxvi.  1.  If  we  give  our  attention  to  what  precedes  we 
shall  find  that  in  each  case  it  consists  of  a  number  of 
sayings  many  of  them  cast  in  the  form  of  epigram,  and 
entirely  independent  of  historical  setting,  others  expanded 
into  parables,  and  others  again  taking  the  form  of  set 
discourses,  but  all  of  them  deahng  with  what  we  have 
called  '  universals,'  or  the  great  basal  spiritual  principles 
which  underhe  our  Lord's  conception  and  teaching  con- 
cerning the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  In  each  case  the  section 
which  follows  is  distinctly  Markan.  It  is  found  in  both 
the  first  and  second  Gospel,  and  the  linguistic  character- 
istics are  very  close.  If,  now,  we  remove  these  sections 
which,  whatever  they  may  be,  are  certainly  not  Logian, 
we  find  that  we  have  five  blocks  of  quite  homogeneous 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  67 

matter.  They  evidently  belong  to  one  source,  and  that 
source  is  other  than  the  Markan  Gospel,  in  whatever  sense 
this  last  be  interpreted. 

Before  we  pass,  however,  to  consider  what  that  source 
can  be,  we  ought  to  consider  whether  any  other  sections  of 
the  first  Gospel  belong  to  the  same  category,  and  four 
passages  at  once  attract  attention,  inasmuch  as  they  also 
contain  a  considerable  amount  of  the  teaching  of  our 
Lord,  and  also  because  they  are  not  found  in  canonical 
Mark.  These  are,  as  a  rule,  referred  by  critics  to  Q, 
and  the  reference  is  due  to  two  facts ;  first,  they  are  words 
spoken  by  our  Lord,  which  is  supposed  to  stamp  them  as 
^sajdngs,'  and  secondly,  they  are  not  found  in  canonical 
Mark,  and  for  this  reason  are  supposed  to  belong  to  a  non- 
Markan  source.  But  when  we  come  to  examine  them  we 
find  that  they  possess  certain  features  which  differentiate 
them  from  the  five  blocks  which  we  have  now  taken  out 
of  the  first  Gospel,  and  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  con- 
siderations which  suggest  a  Markan  source  for  the  sections 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  do  not  occur  in  canonical 
Mark.  The  first  section  is  that  which  is  found  in  xi.  2-30. 
This  consists  of  the  account  of  the  Baptist's  message  to 
Jesus,  and  of  our  Lord's  vindication  of  His  Fore-runner. 
To  this  must  be  added  the  section  beginning  at  verse  20, 
which  is  closely  connected  with  the  preceding  ('  Then 
began  Jesus  to  upbraid,'  etc.).  In  idea  also  the  latter 
follows  on  the  Baptist  section,  inasmuch  as  the  cities 
mentioned  had  not  known  the  day  of  their  visitation  any 
more  than  those  to  whom  the  Baptist  had  made  his  appeal 
in  vain.  The  section  differs  from  the  five  blocks  aforesaid 
because  its  historical  setting  is  necessary  before  the  point 
of  the  teaching  can  be  apprehended.  The  reference  is  not 
universal,  as  is  the  case  with  the  different  parts  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  but  is  circumscribed  by  the 
particular  and  local  relations  of  the  Baptist  to  the  Jews 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  Christ  on  the  other.    Another 


68  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

significant  fact  is  this,  that  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  third 
Gospel  though  not  in  the  second. 

Now  when  we  come  to  consider  the  second  Gospel  we 
shall  at  once  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  its  reference  to 
the  ministry  of  the  Baptist  is  extremely  scanty  as  compared 
with  what  we  find  in  the  other  two  Gospels.  This  is  far 
from  indicating,  in  our  opinion,  that  the  account  of  the 
Baptist's  ministry  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels  must  be 
referred  to  Q.  To  those  who  would  so  relate  it,  it  is 
sufficient  to  ask  with  Dr.  Willoughby  AUen  what  the 
record  of  the  Baptist's  preaching  has  to  do  with  a  col- 
lection of  the  discourses  of  Jesus.  A  far  better  explana- 
tion of  the  fuller  record  of  the  Baptist's  ministry  in  the 
first  and  third  Gospel  is  to  be  found  in  a  distinction  between 
the  Markan  sections  of  those  Gospels  and  canonical  Mark. 
As  soon  as  we  have  grasped  the  fact,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
that  the  Markan  element  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels 
was  in  each  case  earher  than  canonical  Mark,  and  that 
they  were  written  in  Palestine  in  the  one  case  and  for 
Jewish  Christians  in  the  other,  while  the  second  Gospel, 
as  we  have  it,  was  written  for  Gentiles  in  Rome  and  con- 
siderably later,  then  we  see  that  references  in  the  first 
and  third  to  the  Baptist  were  Hkely  to  be  full.  Their 
interest  would  be  great  and  immediate,  while  in  Rome  they 
would  be  remote  and  comparatively  unimportant.  Thus 
the  section  xi.  2-30  would  belong,  Hke  the  fuller  account 
of  the  baptism  and  temptation  of  our  Lord,  to  the  earlier 
editions  of  the  Markan  narrative,  though  it  does  not 
appear  in  canonical  Mark.  There  is  no  apparent  reason 
why  it  should  be  considered  to  have  come  from  the  same 
source  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

The  second  passage  of  the  class  now  under  consideration 
consists  of  the  first  sixteen  verses  of  the  twentieth  chapter. 
The  parable  of  the  labourers  in  the  vineyard  does  not 
occur  in  either  of  the  other  two  Gospels.  Now  if  this 
parable  belongs  to  Q,  we  may  well  ask  for  what  reason  St. 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  69 

Luke  omitted  it  from  his  Gospel.  The  teaching  it  contains 
was  admirably  suited  to  one  who  held  with  St.  Paul  that 
though  the  Gentiles  might  enter  the  kingdom  later  than 
did  the  Jews,  they  were  nevertheless  equal  in  privilege, 
and  fellow-heirs  of  the  grace  of  God.  It  is  one  of  the 
parables  which,  we  consider,  St.  Luke  would  have  made 
haste  to  transcribe  if  he  had  found  it  in  Q.  But  the 
question  remains  whether  it  did  belong  to  Q.  It  is  closely 
connected,  both  grammatically  and  logically,  with  the 
section  which  precedes.  St.  Peter  had  said  to  his  Master, 
'  Lo,  we  have  left  all  and  followed  Thee ;  what  shall  we 
have  therefore  ?  '  The  thought  of  rewards  was  distinctly 
before  him.  Christ  closes  His  reply  with  the  words, 
'  Many  that  are  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  first,'  and 
then  follows  the  parable  '  For  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
hke.  .  .  .'  To  us  it  seems  that  St.  Luke  does  not  record 
the  saying  because  it  never  was  in  his  source.  It  belongs 
to  the  deutero-Mark,  and  may  with  confidence  be  included 
in  the  Markan  section  of  the  first  Gospel. 

Another  similar  passage  is  that  in  which  we  have  the 
parable  of  the  royal  marriage  feast  (Matt.  xxii.  1-14). 
This  passage,  too,  does  not  occur  in  the  second  Gospel, 
and  those  who  refer  everything  that  does  not  so  occur  to 
Q  have  no  hesitation  in  ascribing  the  parable  to  that 
source.  UnHke  the  preceding  parable  in  chapter  xxi. 
this  is  found  in  the  third  Gospel ;  but  there  it  appears 
not  in  those  sections  in  which  St.  Luke  appears  to  be 
using  a  collection  of  sayings,  but  in  that  part  of  the  third 
Gospel  which  is  known  by  the  name  of  '  the  Travel 
Document,'  and  which  is  pecuHar  to  that  Gospel.  It  is 
given  by  St.  Luke  in  chapter  xiv.  15-24,  and  if  the  passage 
is  compared  with  its  equivalent  in  the  first  Gospel,  it  will 
be  seen  how  different  it  is  in  wording  and  detail.  Now 
we  have  already  seen  that  the  characteristics  of  St.  Luke 
are  least  frequent  in  those  passages  in  which  he  uses  his 
collection  of  sayings.     He  seems  least  willing  to  make 


70  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

changes  when  he  is  deahng  with  the  words  of  Jesus,  and 
if  the  difference  is  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  editorial 
privilege,  it  must  be  admitted  that  here  the  third  evangelist 
departs  from  his  usual  practice.  Is  it  at  all  necessary  for 
us  to  do  so  ?  It  follows  a  section  in  the  first  Gospel  which 
is  distinctly  Markan,  and  its  main  purpose  is  closely 
connected  with  what  precedes,  for  in  each  we  have  the 
neglect  and  insult  of  the  lord  which  culminates  in  the 
murder  of  his  servants.  In  each  the  lord  punishes  his 
rebellious  subordinates  with  death,  and  their  privilege 
is  given  to  others.  The  section  is  so  closely  connected 
with  what  we  have  in  Mark  that  it  seems  better  to  assign 
this  passage  too  to  the  Markan  source,  and  the  fact 
that  it  does  not  appear  in  the  second  Gospel  presents  no 
difficulty  to  those  who  consider  that  the  three  Gospels 
present  us  with  three  editions  of  Markan  writing.  The 
custom  of  ascribing  everything  of  a  parabolic  nature  to 
Q  does  not  seem  to  us  to  be  sound  criticism.  Indeed  it  is 
impossible  to  eliminate  from  Mark  all  paraboUc  teaching. 
As  we  have  elsewhere  shown,  St.  Mark  does  not  use  Q, 
but  there  is  no  reason  why  in  his  writings  the  words  and 
parables  of  the  Lord  should  not  appear,  as  they  certainly 
do  in  chapter  iv.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  though 
St.  Peter  dealt  for  the  most  part  with  those  works  of 
Christ  which  declared  Him  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  he  would 
not  hesitate  to  give  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  if  the  occasion 
seemed  to  him  to  demand  it,  and  that  Mark  recorded  this 
parable  in  his  second  edition  we  have  very  httle  doubt.  It 
was  spoken  during  our  Lord's  journey  up  to  Jerusalem, 
but  there  is  Httle  trace  of  chronological  exactness  in  these 
memoirs  of  St.  Peter's  preaching.  St.  Luke  has  given 
the  occasion  of  its  utterance  with  greater  accuracy,  but 
the  details  of  the  parable  in  the  two  records  vary  inasmuch 
as  it  was  derived  from  different  sources. 

The  last  of  these  passages  is  that  which  occurs  in  chapter 
xxiii.    15-39.    This   again  is   closely   connected   with   a 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  71 

preceding  Markan  section  though  it  does  not  appear  in 
canonical  Mark.  It  is  the  passage  in  which  our  Lord 
declares  the  woes  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  it  is 
given  in  substance  by  St.  Luke,  though  the  latter  does 
not  follow  the  order  in  which  the  woes  are  given  in  the 
first  Gospel,  and  his  account  is  very  much  abbreviated. 
We  would  therefore  assign  this  passage  also  to  the  Markan 
section  of  the  first  Gospel ;  and  if  the  question  be  raised  why 
it  does  not  appear  in  the  second  Gospel,  we  would  answer 
that  the  subject-matter  of  the  section,  while  of  extreme 
importance  to  Jews,  would  be  omitted  from  an  edition 
prepared  for  a  Gentile  Church  in  Rome,  as  being  of  much 
less  importance  and  interest  to  them.  Now  if  this  analysis 
of  these  sections  be  correct,  we  are  left  with  a  sharp 
division  between  the  five  blocks  of  homogeneous  '  sayings,' 
and  the  great  mass  of  Markan  material  into  which  the 
sayings  seem  to  have  been  thrust. 

It  is  true  that  much  of  what  we  have  assigned  to  the 
Markan  document  is  held  by  critics  to  have  been  derived 
from  Q,  and  these  sections  wiU  be  duly  weighed,  but 
assuming  for  the  present  that  the  division  we  have  made 
is  a  true  division,  we  now  proceed  to  consider  the  five 
blocks  of  sayings  which  we  have  taken  out  of  the  first 
Gospel.^  The  very  arrangement  of  a  group  of  five  is 
significant.  Sir  John  Hawkins  compares  with  it  the  five 
books  of  the  Pentateuch,  the  five  books  of  the  Psalms, 
the  five  Megilloth,  as  well  as  other  similar  groups,  and 
concludes  by  saying  :  '  It  is  hard  to  beheve  that  it  is  by 
accident  that  we  find  in  a  writer  with  the  Jewish  affinities 
of  Matthew  this  five  times  repeated  formula,'  i.e.  '  When 
Jesus  had  finished  these  sajdngs.'  Another  most  signifi- 
cant fact  is  that,  according  to  Eusebius  (iii.  39),  Papias 
wrote  a  commentary  on  the  Logia  of  Matthew  in  five 
books,  and  we  may  conclude  that  he  did  so  because  the 
sayings  were  already  grouped  into  that  number  of  chapters. 

1  For  a  detailed  analysis  of  these  sections,  see  Additional  Note,  p.  93  fiF, 


72  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

All  this  makes  a  strong  prima  facie  argument  that  the 
Logia  of  Matthew  are  not  lost,  but  exist  in  the  first  Gospel, 
sandwiched  between  corresponding  portions  of  Markan 
narrative.  The  traditional  title  of  the  first  Gospel  is  thus 
easily  accounted  for.  If  the  distinctive  portion  of  the 
Gospel  had  been  taken  from  some  Gospel  (Q)  of  unknown 
authorship,  there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  the  name  of 
St.  Matthew  should  have  been  attached  to  it,  and  if  a 
work  of  such  first-rate  importance  as  one  written  by  the 
apostle  Matthew,  and  containing  the  discourses  of  Christ, 
was  ever  in  existence,  it  is  hard  to  beheve  that  it  could 
have  disappeared  from  among  the  treasured  documents 
of  the  Christian  Church.  The  statement  of  Papias  can- 
not Mghtly  be  set  aside,  and  our  analysis  of  the  Gospel 
enables  us  to  see  that  St.  Matthew's  work  has  never  been 
lost,  but  is  still  before  us  in  the  Gospel  which  bears  his 
name. 

The  history  of  the  Gospel  may  then  be  reconstructed 
somewhat  as  follows  : — In  quite  early  days  St.  Matthew 
collated  the  sajdngs  ascribed  to  Jesus,  rejecting  those  that 
were  spurious  and  retaining  those  that  he  recognised  as 
having  been  spoken  at  different  times  by  his  great  Master. 
He  arranged  these  according  to  an  approved  Jewish  method 
by  placing  them  in  five  groups,  the  sajings  in  each  group 
deahng  directly  with  some  topic  upon  which  our  Lord  was 
wont  to  discourse  from  time  to  time.  When  the  Church 
began  to  find  converts  among  the  Hellenistic  Jews  of  the 
Dispersion,  translations  of  these  sayings  were  made,  and 
one  such  copy  found  its  way  to  Egj^t,  where  there  were 
from  earhest  times  a  considerable  number  of  Jews.  St. 
Mark  had  already  left  there  a  copy  of  his  memoirs  of  St. 
Peter's  preaching ;  it  was  not  identical  with  either  that 
earHer  edition  which  he  had  left  at  Caesarea  (see  chap,  v.) 
nor  with  one  which  he  was  to  publish  considerably  later  in 
Rome.  It  contained  parables  and  other  teaching  of  our 
Lord's,  which  St.  Matthew  had  not  included  in  his  work, 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  73 

and  there  were  in  it  certain  references  which  would  be  of 
special  interest  to  Christians  Hving  in  Egypt.  It  fell  to 
the  lot  of  some  member  of  this  Church  to  throw  into  one 
volume  these  two  accounts  of  what  Jesus  said  and  what 
Jesus  did.  He  accomplished  this  in  a  very  simple,  a  very 
rough  and  ready  manner,  by  separating  the  five  chapters 
and  inserting  each  at  some  Hkely  point  in  the  Markan 
narrative,  but  he  was  always  careful  to  mark  the  point 
of  transition  by  a  formula  which  is  found  nowhere  else. 
He  also  possessed  an  account  of  the  birth  of  our  Lord 
which  had  been  derived  through  stages  of  which  we  have 
no  trace,  from  Joseph  the  husband  of  the  mother  of  our 
Lord,  and  which,  from  its  inclusion  of  the  flight  into  Egypt 
and  other  details,  seems  to  have  been  drawn  up  in  Egyipt.^ 
This  he  naturally  prefixed  to  the  other  two  sections.  He 
further  interpolated  quotations  from  a  collection  of 
Messianic  proof-texts  at  points  at  which  such  seemed 
appropriate,  and  to  the  Gospel  thus  prepared  the  name  of 
'  The  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew '  was  given  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark,  which  by 
that  time  was  beginning  to  be  known. 

If  this  account  of  the  way  in  which  St.  Matthew's  name 
was  attached  to  this  Gospel  be  correct,  it  follows  that  we 
need  not  seek  for  any  exact  definition  in  time  for  the 
occasions  on  which  the  several  discourses  or  the  individual 
sayings  were  uttered  by  our  Lord.  The  relation  of  sajdng 
to  saying  is  that  of  its  bearing  upon  the  topic  which  St. 
Matthew  discovered  underlying  the  general  teaching  of 
Jesus.  He  would  put  together  sayings  some  of  which  were 
uttered  early  in  the  course  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  and 
others  which  He  uttered  on  His  way  to  Jerusalem,  or  in 
the  course  of  His  latest  ministry  in  the  temple. 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  while  Justin  {Dial.  77,  78)  and  Tertullian 
{Jud.  9)  say  that  the  Magi  came  from  Arabia,  which  lies  to  the  south  of 
Palestine,  the  first  Gospel  says  that  they  came  'from  the  East.'  The  two 
statements  are  seen  to  be  in  agreement  if  we  accept  the  theory  that  the 
birthplace  of  the  first  Gospel  was  Alexandria. 


74  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Thus  we  shall  still  continue  to  use  the  term  *  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount/  but  the  unity  of  that  sermon  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  St.  Matthew  rather  than  to  the  great  Teacher 
whose  words  he  recorded.  We  need  not  on  this  account 
take  up  the  position  that  our  Lord  never  deUvered  a  set 
discourse  in  which  many  of  these  sajdngs  found  utterance, 
but  it  does  not  seem  hkely  that  we  have  such  a  discourse 
in  this  '  sermon.'  For  in  the  first  place  no  report  of  that 
discourse  could  have  been  taken  down,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  accept  that  any  one  could  have  committed  it  to  memory 
on  the  strength  of  a  single  utterance.  In  the  second 
place,  no  amount  of  editorial  freedom  would  have  led  St. 
Luke  to  separate  that  discourse  into  disjointed  fragments 
as,  on  this  hypothesis,  he  has  done.  Further,  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  account  for  the  connection  of  such  passages  as 
Matthew  v.  31,  32,  vi.  7-15,  and  vii.  7-11  if  they  formed 
parts  of  a  single  discourse.  Those  who  hold  that  the 
sermon  was  actually  deUvered  as  a  sermon  by  our  Lord  are 
forced  to  regard  these  and  other  passages  as  interpolations, 
but  this  method  of  accounting  for  the  collection  as  it 
stands  raises  other  difficulties.  Then  if  the  arrangement 
of  sayings  was  the  work  of  our  Lord,  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  suppose  that  the  other  sections  in 
which  we  have  blocks  of  sayings  in  the  first  Gospel  are  also 
given  as  deUvered  by  Him,  and  this  would  produce  an 
impression  of  Christ's  method  far  di£ferent  from  what  we 
beUeve  was  the  fact.  It  would  make  Him  out  to  be  a 
formaUst,  whereas  the  remarks  have  a  spontaneity  and 
freshness  about  them  which  make  it  far  more  probable  that 
they  were  uttered  as  each  several  occasion  demanded,  with 
a  readiness  suggestive  of  a  fountain  of  truth  which  was  brim- 
fuU,  and  ever  ready  to  pour  forth  the  riches  of  its  contents. 

What  then  was  the  '  unity  '  which  appealed  to  the  mind 
of  St.  Matthew,  and  led  him  to  group  together  the  sayings 
which  make  up  our  '  Sermon  on  the  Mount '  ?  The 
answer  varies  with  the  scholar  who  considers  it.     Professor 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  76 

Votaw  considers  that  the  theme  is  sufficiently  described 
under  the  title  '  The  Ideal  Life,'  and  the  Beatitudes  are 
considered  to  give  a  summary  of  the  theme  which  is  after- 
wards developed  in  detail.  Dr.  Stanton  describes  the 
theme  as  '  The  Character  of  the  Heirs  of  the  Kingdom/ 
but  this  seems  more  appropriate  as  a  description  of 
chapter  xviii.  Holtzmann,  Wendt,  and  others  find  the 
unity  in  v.  17-20,  and  describe  it  as  '  The  Fulfilment  of 
the  Law.'  None  of  these  however  seems,  to  the  present 
writer  at  least,  to  supply  a  sufficient  unity.  The  present 
Bishop  of  Oxford  comes  much  nearer  to  it  when  he 
describes  it  as  '  The  Moral  Law  of  the  Kingdom.'  Dr. 
Gore,  however,  goes  on  to  say  that  it  is  '  law,  not  grace  ; 
letter,  not  spirit.'  But  although  we  shall  acknowledge 
that  it  contains  what  we  should  expect  in  a  first  chapter 
of  discourses  on  the  Kingdom — a  statement  of  its  statutes, 
of  the  great  principles  that  underHe  the  whole  conception 
of  that  great  Jewish  ideal  as  it  existed  in  the  thought  of 
Christ — it  is  the  spirit  of  the  law,  rather  than  its  letter 
that  is  before  us. 

The  most  satisfactory  account,  which  we  have  seen, 
of  the  theme  not  only  of  this  first  chapter  of  St.  Matthew's 
work,  but  also  of  the  remaining  four  sections,  is  given  by 
Monsignor  Barnes  in  the  Journal  of  Theological  Studies, 
1905.  M.  Barnes  holds  that  St.  Matthew's  purpose  was 
to  illustrate  from  the  teaching  of  Jesus  His  exposition  of 
that  idea  which  was  always  prominently  before  the  rehgious 
conception  of  the  Jew,  and  which  formed  the  purpose  of 
the  preaching  of  both  the  Baptist  and  the  Christ — ^the 
Kingdom  of  God.     M.  Barnes  thus  arranges  the  sections  : 

Matt,  v.,  vi.,  vii.  :  The  Law  of  the  Kingdom. 

Matt.  X.  :  The  Rulers  of  the  Kingdom. 

Matt.  xiii.  :  The  Parables  of  the  Kingdom. 

Matt,  xviii.  :  Relations   of   the   Members    of   the 

Kingdom. 

Matt,  xxiv.,  XXV. :  The  Coming  of  the  King. 


76  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

This  seems  a  fair  description  of  the  contents  of  these 
sections,  though  others  may  prefer  other  titles. 

In  discussing  the  Markan  narrative  which  we  have  in  the 
first  Gospel,  it  will  be  best  to  begin  with  a  statement  of  the 
points  which  have  secured  recognition  and  acceptance 
among  scholars.  These  can  scarcely  be  better  stated  than 
they  are  by  Dr.  Stanton  in  the  work  to  which  frequent 
reference  has  been  made,  and  which  will  long  remain  a 
storehouse  of  scholarly  research  and  critical  acumen. 
Dr.  Stanton  says  r 

1.  While  the  narratives  of  the  birth  and  infancy  of 

Jesus  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  are  widely 
different,  these  Gospels  begin  to  agree  with  one 
another  and  with  St.  Mark  from  the  point  at  which 
the  latter  begins,  namely,  with  the  ministry  of 
John  the  Baptist. 

2.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  St. 

Mark  is  found  in  both  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke, 
and  there  is  on  the  whole  a  close  paralleHsm 
between  all  three  in  the  arrangement  of  this  matter. 
In  other  words,  there  is  a  common  outUne ;  into 
this  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  a  considerable 
amount  of  additional  matter  has  been  quite 
diversely  introduced. 

3.  With    very    few    exceptions,    our    first    and    third 

evangelists,  so  far  as  they  omit  incidents  and 
sayings  given  in  St.  Mark,  do  not  omit  the  same 
ones  ;  the  result  being  that  almost  all  the  sections 
in  St.  Mark  are  found  also  in  one  or  other  of  the 
two  remaining  Synoptics  ;  that  is  to  say,  there  are 
very  few  passages  pecuHar  to  this  Gospel. 

4.  When  the  sequence  of  narratives  in  St.  Matthew  or 

St.  Luke  differs  from  that  in  St.  Mark,  the  other 
one  agrees  with  St.  Mark.  In  other  words,  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke  do  not,  save  in  one  or  two 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  77 

instances,  unite  against  St.  Mark  as  to  order. 
When  all  three  do  not  agree  in  respect  to  it,  we  have 
the  same  sequence  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark, 
or  in  St.  Luke  and  St.  Mark. 
6.  There  is  further  an  agreement  which  is  generally 
considerable,  and  sometimes  very  full,  between  St. 
Mark  and  each  of  the  two  other  Synoptics  in  the 
manner  in  which  incidents  are  related,  and  in 
phraseology.  All  three  frequently  agree  in  these 
respects.  But  there  are  also  commonly  particulars 
of  this  kind  in  which  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke 
each  separately  agrees  with  St.  Mark.  On  the 
whole  the  correspondence  is  closest  between  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  ;  but  there  are  cases  in 
which  the  correspondence  is  closer  between  St. 
Luke  and  the  parallel  passage  in  St.  Mark  than 
between  the  latter  and  the  parallel  in  St.  Matthew. 
Finally,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  amount  of 
agreement  in  statements  or  words  between  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke  alone,  in  all  parts  of  their 
Gospels  which  are  in  substance  contained  in  St. 
Mark,  is  trifling  in  comparison  with  the  agreement 
of  each  separately,  and  even  of  both  together, 
with  St.  Mark. 

Dr.  Stanton  concludes  that  if  we  suppose  that  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke  used  Mark,  or  a  document  resembling 
Mark,  and  each  in  his  own  way  revised  and  supplemented 
it,  we  have  a  simple  and  natural  explanation  of  these 
phenomena.  The  present  writer  finds  himself  in  complete 
agreement  with  all  the  facts  as  related  by  Dr.  Stanton, 
but  in  the  conclusion  drawn  he  would  prefer  the  second  of 
the  alternatives  offered  by  him,  and  would  rather  say  that 
the  two  authors  used  '  a  document  resembhng  St.  Mark,' 
and  not  the  second  Gospel  as  we  know  it.  The  reasons  for 
this  preference  are  set  forth  in  the  chapter  deahng  with  the 


78  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

second  Gospel,  and  we  proceed  now  to  discuss,  in  the  light 
of  this  preference,  the  Markan  narrative  as  it  appears  in  the 
first. 

The  first  section  which  we  assign  to  the  authorship  of 
St.  Mark  is  the  one  which  is  most  disputed,  and  it  raises 
most  of  the  questions  which  gather  around  the  question 
of  the  Markan  element  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke.  It 
is  the  section  in  which  the  ministry  of  the  Baptist  is  set 
forth  with  the  sequel  so  closely  connected  with  it — the 
temptation  of  our  Lord.  The  majority  of  critics  refer  this 
section  to  Q,  and  we  have  already  alluded  to  this  in  general 
terms.  A  comparison  of  the  three  accounts  reveals  at 
once  the  ground  upon  which  they  arrive  at  their  con- 
clusion. By  far  the  fullest  account  is  given  by  St.  Luke, 
and  this  evangelist  prefaces  his  account  with  a  detailed 
chronological  statement  which  is  a  distinct  addition  of 
his  own. 

The  account  given  in  the  first  Gospel  is  not  quite  so 
extensive  as  that  in  the  third  Gospel,  but  it  is  in  close 
agreement  with  it  in  giving  the  words  of  the  Baptist  in 
some  detail,  and  in  calling  attention  to  the  rebuke  given  by 
the  Baptist  to  the  Pharisees  and  the  Sadducees.  The 
second  Gospel  gives  the  account  of  the  Baptist's  ministry 
in  a  most  scanty  fashion.  The  preaching  of  the  Baptist 
is  referred  to  in  the  very  brief  statement  that  he  preached 
the  baptism  of  repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins.  There 
is  no  reference  to  the  denunciation  of  the  religious  leaders 
among  the  Jews.  The  announcement  of  the  coming  of 
Jesus  varies  in  precisely  the  same  way  in  the  three  accounts. 
St.  Luke's  account  is  the  fullest  and  St.  Mark's  the  briefest. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  both  in  this  and 
in  the  preceding  section,  where  we  get  a  reference  to  the 
same  matter  in  the  first  Gospel  and  in  the  second,  whether 
it  be  the  description  of  the  habits  of  the  Baptist  or  of 
his  reference  to  the  coming  Messiah,  there  is  marked 
resemblance  in  phraseology,  so  that  we  may  infer  that  if 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  79 

St.  Matthew  derived  the  sections  from  any  one  source, 
St.  Mark  also  must  have  taken  them  from  that  source. 
In  describing  the  ministry  of  the  coming  Messiah,  the  first 
Gospel  (here  in  agreement  with  the  third)  makes  the 
significant  addition  that  He  would  baptize  '  with  fire.' 
In  the  baptism  of  our  Lord  the  first  Gospel  represents  the 
Baptist  as  accepting  a  position  of  inferiority  to  Him  who 
came  to  be  baptized.  We  can  see  how  this  would  be  a 
point  to  be  insisted  upon  when  addressing  those  who  held 
John  to  be  '  that  prophet '  if  not  the  Messiah  Himself, 
and  the  fulfilHng  of  '  righteousness '  would  again  have 
weight  with  those  to  whom  the  Old  Testament  teaching 
on  the  subject  of  righteousness  would  be  familiar.  The 
second  Gospel  also  differs  characteristically  by  the 
insertion  of  the  word  o-xtfo/AcVovs,  'rent  asunder,' 
where  the  other  Gospels  say  simply  that  the  heavens 
'  were  opened.'  This  addition  is  one  of  the  many  vivid 
details  which  make  up  the  outstanding  feature  of  the 
second  Gospel.  They  indicate  not  only  the  evidence  of 
an  eye-witness,  but  also  the  experience  of  the  speaker  who 
has  learnt  how  to  make  his  narrative  vivid  and  effective 
for  his  hearers.  They  are  distinctly  Petrine  in  origin, 
and  appear  appropriately  in  the  later  rather  than  in  the 
earher  edition  of  the  Petrine  memoirs. 

The  temptation  of  our  Lord  sprang  directly  out  of  the 
manifestation  made  in  the  course  of  His  baptism,  and 
forms  one  section  with  the  foregoing.  It  exhibits  precisely 
the  same  features  as  we  find  in  the  latter ;  a  full  account 
in  the  third  Gospel,  another  almost  as  full  in  the  first  with 
the  reference  to  '  the  holy  city '  which  repeats  the  Jewish 
tendency,  and  an  account  in  the  second  which  by  com- 
parison is  the  merest  outHne,  and  gives  no  details  of  our 
Lord's  temptation.  It  exhibits,  however,  the  same  vivid 
touch,  which  we  have  already  found  in  the  second  Gospel, 
in  the  statement  peculiar  to  that  Gospel  that  our  Lord  was 
*  with  the  wild  beasts.' 


80  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Now  apparently  the  reason  which  leads  critics  to  refer 
the  whole  of  this  section  to  Q  is  the  difficulty  of  finding 
a  place  for  it  in  the  Markan  source,  when  that  source  is 
taken  to  be  the  canonical  Mark.  If  this  section  belongs  to 
that  source,  then  we  have  the  editors  of  the  first  and  third 
Gospels  making  additions  to  that  source  for  which  no 
account  can  be  given.  To  avoid  this  difficulty,  the  whole 
section  is  commonly  assigned  to  Q.  And  yet  if  we  accept 
this,  we  entirely  destroy  the  character  of  Q,  so  far  as  we 
can  assign  it  a  definite  character.  For  in  this  section  we 
must  admit  that  the  proportion  of  narrative  is  far  in  excess 
of  anything  in  the  nature  of  discourse.  It  contains  far 
more  of  the  words  of  the  Baptist  than  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  and  the  very  few  words  of  Jesus  which  it  records 
differ  in  what  we  have  seen  to  be  an  essential  point  from 
Logia  properly  so  called.  They  do  not  deal  with  essential 
spiritual  principles,  but  are  dependent  for  interpretation 
upon  the  circumstances  which  called  them  forth.  If  again 
the  editors  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  derived  the 
section  from  Q,  the  fact  that  they  differ  as  they  do  between 
themselves  creates  a  further  difficulty.  St.  Luke  treats 
his  Logian  source  with  the  greatest  respect.  What  are 
called  '  Lukan  characteristics '  are  least  apparent  in  this 
part  of  his  Gospel,  which  means  that  he  felt  less  incHned 
to  use  his  editorial  freedom  in  amending  this  one  of  his 
sources.  This  was  only  natural  to  one  who  reaHsed  that 
in  this  he  was  dealing  with  '  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus.' 
But  how  then  are  we  to  explain  the  fact  that  he  differs 
from  St.  Matthew  as  he  does  if  they  both  used  the  same 
source  ?  In  the  teaching  of  the  Baptist,  in  the  order  of 
the  temptations,  and  in  minor  details,  he  seems  to  be 
using  a  source  which,  while  exhibiting  a  general  hkeness 
to  that  used  in  compihng  the  first  Gospel,  nevertheless  is 
far  from  being  identical  with  that  source. 

Now  all  these  difficulties  find  an  easy  solution  when  we 
refer  this  section  not  to  Q,  but  to  Mark,  meaning  by  that 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  81 

an  earlier  edition  of  the  work  of  that  evangelist.  We  see 
at  once  that  the  earlier  editions,  prepared  in  Palestine, 
or  for  Jews,  would  be  in  this  section  much  fuller  than 
they  would  be  in  the  later  edition  which  belongs  to  Rome, 
while  the  latter  would  exhibit  just  those  vivid  details 
which  we  have  found  in  it.  We  also  secure  what  seems  to 
the  present  writer  the  great  advantage  of  considering  Q 
to  be  homogeneous.  It  is  difficult  to  answer  the  objection 
of  those  who  say  that  if  this  narrative  section  can  be 
allowed  at  the  beginning  of  Q,  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  refuse  to  admit  that  it  also  closed  with  an  account 
of  our  Lord's  Passion.  But  if  Q  contained  both  these 
sections  it  must  have  been  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
'  a  Gospel,'  and  its  disappearance  and  loss  becomes  inex- 
pHcable.  Returning  to  the  section  as  it  appears  in  the 
first  Gospel,  we  notice  that  it  contains  more  than  one 
allusion  to  what  we  may  call  a  Jewish  interest.  The 
denunciation  of  the  rehgious  orders  among  the  Jews  and 
the  reference  to  the  '  holy  city,'  these  are  things  which 
would  appear  naturally  in  an  account  written  for  those 
who  were  Jewish  Christians,  and  in  describing  the  diJBPerence 
between  the  baptism  of  John  and  the  baptism  of  our  Lord, 
the  addition  of  the  significant  phrase  '  He  shall  baptise  with 
fire'  belongs  naturally  to  an  edition  prepared  for  those 
who  had  witnessed  or  heard  of  what  took  place  at 
Pentecost  and  in  the  house  of  CorneKus,  but  the  phrase 
would  have  lost  significance  for  those  who  belonged  to  a 
later  age,  and  hved  in  Rome.  It  therefore  fails  to  appear 
in  the  second  Gospel.  We  confidently  then  refer  this 
section  to  the  Markan  source  rather  than  to  Q. 

The  next  Markan  section  in  the  first  Gospel  begins  at 
iv.  17-25  and  continues  on  in  chapters  viii.  and  ix.,  the 
sequence  being  broken,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  insertion 
of  chapters  v.,  vi.,  and  vii.  which  are  taken  from  another 
source.  In  this  passage  we  notice  that  the  call  of  the 
first  four  disciples  while  agreeing  almost  word  for  word 


82  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

with  what  we  have  in  St.  Mark  does  not  appear  in  St. 
Luke.  This  evangehst  gives  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  his 
Gospel  what  is  evidently  a  later  and  more  decisive  call 
than  what  is  given  here.  The  fact  of  the  two  calls  creates 
no  difficulty.  Wc  can  see  from  the  fourth  Gospel  that 
the  first  attachment  of  the  disciples  to  Christ  was 
apparently  less  binding,  and  that  their  connection  with 
Him  became  a  much  closer  thing  later  on.  In  the  first 
edition  of  Mark  the  later  call  was  described,  and  as  such 
appears  in  the  third  Gospel,  but  in  the  later  editions  the 
earher  call  was  given. 

This  is  followed  by  the  story  of  the  cure  of  a  leper, 
chap.  viii.  1-4.  The  section  is  given  in  practically  the 
same  terms  in  all  three  accounts,  but  in  the  second  Gospel 
we  notice  at  least  two  '  vivid  touches.'  In  verse  41  of 
that  Gospel  we  read  that  Christ  '  had  compassion '  upon 
the  leper,  and  in  verse  43  a  remarkable  word  ^  is  used  to 
describe  the  strictness  with  which  Christ  charged  the  man 
that  he  was  not  to  pubhsh  his  cure  abroad.  That  these 
two  expressions  do  not  appear  in  the  first  Gospel  is  usually 
explained  on  the  ground  that  they  were  omitted  by  its 
editor  probably  for  the  sake  of  brevity.  But  the  brevity 
so  gained  would  be  very  shght  in  amount,  and  one  would 
scarcely  imagine  that  to  secure  this  sHght  advantage  words 
which  have  so  much  to  do  with  the  personal  feeHng  of  our 
Lord  would  be  omitted  ;  and  that  St.  Luke,  writing  under 
quite  different  conditions  and  for  a  different  cHentele, 
should  fix  upon  precisely  the  same  words  to  save  space 
seems  to  us  most  unhkely.  A  far  more  reasonable 
explanation  is  to  suppose  that  their  non-appearance  in  the 
first  Gospel  is  due  simply  to  the  fact  that  they  were  not 
included  in  the  edition  of  Mark  which  was  used  by  the 
editor.  Time  had  revealed  to  both  St.  Peter  and  St.  Mark 
that  the  personahty  of  their  Lord  was  the  great  treasure 
which  they  had  to  hand  down  to  the  Church,  and   thus 

1  ifi^pi/iijadfjt-evos. 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  83 

that  which  had  to  do  with  the  personal  life  of  Christ  found 
expression  in  the  later  edition  though  it  was  absent  from 
the  earUer. 

The  story  of  the  cure  of  the  centurion's  servant  which 
follows  is  one  of  the  most  disputed  sections  of  our  Gospel. 
It  is  given  both  by  St.  Luke  and  by  the  editor  of  the  first 
Gospel,  but  it  is  completely  absent  from  the  second. 
On  the  principle  that  non-Markan  material  means  Q, 
this  section  also  is  assigned  to  the  Logian  document,  and 
with  Dr.  Willoughby  Allen  we  are  compelled  to  ask  what 
a  compilation  of  discourses  can  have  in  common  with  a 
narrative  section  hke  this.  Dr.  Allen  points  out  that 
'  the  central  point  of  the  story  is  not  Christ's  saying  "  not 
even  in  Israel  have  I  found  such  faith,"  for  as  a  saying 
apart  from  its  context  that  has  no  meaning,  but  the  facts 
that  Christ  could  heal  with  a  word,  and  that  He  had  done 
such  a  healing  for  the  servant  of  a  centurion.'  To  us  this 
comment  of  Dr.  Allen  seems  unanswerable,  and  on  the 
theory  of  a  deutero-Mark  in  which  the  section  appeared, 
though  it  was  omitted  from  the  trito-Mark,  we  have  no 
hesitation  in  referring  this  section  also  to  the  Markan 
document. 

From  this  point  to  the  end  of  the  ninth  chapter  we  have 
what  is  accepted  as  Markan  material.  The  three  versions 
differ,  as  we  should  expect  them  to  differ,  if,  while  written 
down  by  one  man,  they  were  written  on  different  occasions 
and  for  different  classes  of  persons.  There  are  also  editorial 
changes,  especially  in  the  third  Gospel,  but  these  need  not 
detain  us. 

We  have  shown  that  chapters  x.-xi.  1  belong  to  the  Logia, 
and  we  have  also  given  reasons  for  relating  the  section 
which  follows  this  xi.  2-30  to  the  Markan  document.  From 
xii.  1-xiii.  23  we  have  a  distinct  Markan  section,  only  broken 
by  the  insertion  of  a  quotation  from  the  Messianic  proof- 
texts  to  which  reference  has  previously  been  made.  In 
verses  5-7  of  the  twelfth  chapter  we  have  a  statement 


84  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

made  by  our  Lord  which  appears  in  the  first  Gospel,  but 
not  in  the  others.  The  statement  carries  that  Jewish 
reference  which  we  have  seen  is  characteristic  of  the 
first  Gospel  throughout.  It  reflects  upon  the  attitude  of 
the  reUgious  teachers  of  the  Jews,  and  would  have  its 
place  in  a  narrative  prepared  by  St.  Mark  for  the  Jewish 
Christians  of  Alexandria.  It  is  wholly  unnecessary  to 
refer  it  to  Q.  In  the  parallel  section  of  canonical  Mark  we 
find  a  statement  which  is  entirely  apposite  to  the  discussion 
on  the  Sabbath  given  by  all  three  evangelists,  and  yet 
the  remarkable  words  do  not  appear  in  either  the  first  or 
the  third  Gospel.  In  Mark  ii.  27  we  read  that  '  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath.' 
Now  if  canonical  Mark  was  before  both  the  first  and  the 
third  Evangehsts,  it  is  exceedingly  difiicult  to  see  on  what 
ground  they  omitted  the  striking  words  which  go  so  far  to 
support  their  own  point  of  view.  The  so-called  '  omissions  ' 
of  these  evangehsts  make  an  insuperable  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  those  who  accept  the  theory  that  canonical  Mark 
was  one  of  their  sources. 

In  xii.  22-32  we  have  the  account  of  a  discussion  which 
followed  upon  the  cure  of  a  bhnd  and  dumb  demoniac. 
This  section  also  appears  in  the  second  Gospel.  Those 
who  consider  that  non-Markan  material  indicates  Q  assign 
this  section  to  that  document,  and  get  over  the  incon- 
sistency which  might  be  charged  against  them  by  assuming 
that  in  this  case  St.  Mark  must  have  used  Q.  With  refer- 
ence to  the  supposed  use  of  Q  by  St.  Mark  we  have  written 
elsewhere  (see  page  109).  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  if  St. 
Mark  were  here  reproducing  Q,  it  is  strange  that  he  should 
have  omitted  such  striking  words  as  are  given  in  the  first 
Gospel  in  verses  27,  28  and  30.  Dr.  Streeter  ^  holds  that 
St.  Mark  quoted  Q  from  memory,  thus  accounting  for 
passages  in  which  there  is  a  divergence  from  Q  in  the 
second  Gospel,  and  in  any  case  he  contends  that  St.  Mark 

1  Oxford  Studies,  p.  219. 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  86 

only  used  the  Logian  document  to  a  limited  extent.  But 
this  limited  use  of  sayings  in  the  second  Gospel  is  better 
accounted  for  if  the  point  may  be  conceded  that  the 
narrative  of  an  event  does  not  necessarily  exclude  the 
words  of  Jesus  uttered  on  the  occasion.  This  opinion  is 
expressed  clearly  by  Dr.  Stanton  ^  who  says  :  '  The  mere 
fact  of  the  existence  of  parallels  in  the  Logian  document 
to  sajdngs  contained  in  St.  Mark  is  no  proof  that  the 
author  of  the  latter  must  have  derived  them  from  the 
oral  or  written  Logian  collection,  and  not  directly  or 
independently  from  the  Apostle  Peter.'  This  section 
therefore  with  the  rest  we  assign  to  St.  Mark's  narrative 
rather  than  to  Q.  There  are  differences  between  the  one 
account  and  the  other,  but  these  are  fully  accounted 
for  on  the  theory  of  three  editions  of  Mark.  The  section 
in  which  a  description  of  Scribes  and  Pharisees  demanding 
a  sign  from  our  Lord  is  given  does  not  appear  in  St.  Mark's 
Gospel,  but  that  need  create  no  difficulty  ;  for  as  it  has  to 
do  with  the  attitude  of  these  Jews  to  Christ  it  would  be 
more  apposite  in  the  proto-  and  deutero-Mark  than  in  the 
trito-Mark. 

The  next  Markan  section  of  the  first  Gospel  according 
to  our  division  is  found  in  chapters  xii.  33-50  and  xiii.  1-23. 
In  this  the  verses  33-45  in  the  twelfth  chapter  do  not  appear 
in  the  second  Gospel ;  they  have  the  appearance  of  such 
sayings  as  we  have  found  in  the  five  great  sections  which 
we  have  taken  to  constitute  St.  Matthew's  contribution  to 
this  Gospel.  But  it  is  clear  that  they  are  closely  connected 
with  the  passage  which  foUows  in  verses  46-50  which  is 
distinctly  Markan,  and  as  they  have  to  do  with  the  spiritual 
failure  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  with  our  Lord's 
reflections  upon  them,  it  is  probable  that  they  were  excluded 
from  the  trito-Mark  for  this  reason. 

xiii.  24-52  is,  as  we  have  seen,  another  of  the  divisions 
of  this  Gospel  which  close  with  the  formula  of  transition 
1  Op.  cit.  p.  174. 


86  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

from  sajdngs  to  narrative.  The  fact  that  one  of  the 
parables — that  of  the  mustard  seed — occurs  in  St.  Mark 
should  not  lead  us  either  to  include  the  Matthaean  section 
in  the  Markan  narrative,  or  to  infer  that  here  St.  Mark 
is  using  Q,  for  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  we 
should  rule  out  from  the  preaching  of  St.  Peter,  repro- 
duced by  St.  Mark,  any  parable  of  our  Lord  which  the 
preacher  or  the  evangeHst  might  have  thought  fit  to  give. 
The  parable  might  have  come  into  the  Matthaean  Logia 
along  quite  another  Hne  of  tradition,  and  there  are 
Unguistic  differences  between  the  two  accounts  which 
lead  us  to  infer  that  this  was  so.  Further,  St.  Mark 
closely  connects  it  with  the  parable  of  the  seed  growing 
secretly,  and  we  have  shown  that  if  St.  Mark  derived  this 
latter  parable  from  Q  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  both  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke  should  have  omitted  it  in  using  that 
document. 

At  verse  53  a  long  section  common  to  the  first  and 
second  Gospel  begins  and  continues  to  xxiv.  36.  In  the 
twentieth,  the  twenty-second  and  the  twenty-third 
chapters  occur  short  sections  containing  the  teaching  of 
our  Lord,  which  some  would  on  that  account  refer  to  Q, 
but  we  have  shown  reason  for  including  these  also  in  the 
Markan  document  (see  p.  68  ff.).  A  considerable  part  of 
the  matter  contained  in  this  section  does  not  appear  at  all 
in  the  third  Gospel.  It  forms  what  has  been  called  '  the 
great  omission '  from  the  third  Gospel,  and  a  discussion 
of  it  will  be  found  in  chapter  vi. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell  here  upon  the  differences 
between  the  deutero-  and  trito-Mark  in  this  section. 
They  exhibit  exactly  what,  we  have  seen,  might  be 
expected  in  the  way  of  difference  between  one  edition  and 
another — a  certain  amount  of  resemblance,  inasmuch  as 
both  were  the  work  of  one  evangeHst,  but  also  a  certain 
amount  of  difference  inasmuch  as  they  were  prepared 
under  different  conditions  and  in  the  interests  of  con- 


I 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  '  87 

gregations  one  of  which  was  mainly  Jewish,  and  the  other 
mainly  Gentile.  We  may  notice  as  confirmatory  of  this 
that  the  trito-Mark  omits  the  woes  spoken  by  our  Lord 
against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees. 

The  last  section  of  the  Matthaean  Logia  begins  at  xxiv. 
37  and  continues  to  xxv.  46.  It  is  what  constitutes  the 
Eschatological  section  of  the  first  Gospel,  although 
Eschatological  references  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  are 
not  Umited  to  this  section.  The  difficult  question  of  the 
relation  of  this  discourse  to  the  '  Little  Apocaljrpse  '  in  the 
second  Gospel  will  be  better  discussed  in  the  following 
chapter  of  this  work. 

In  the  concluding  section,  chapters  xxvi.  1  to  xxviii.  20, 
the  correspondence  between  the  first  and  second  Gospels 
is  particularly  close.  As  we  shall  see,  St.  Luke  here  departs 
considerably  from  the  Markan  source  in  relating  the 
Passion  and  the  post-Resurrection  appearances  of  our 
Lord.  But  the  close  correspondence  between  the  other 
two  is  of  pecuhar  value  to  us  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
last  chapter  of  St.  Mark  has  been  obviously  mutilated. 
There  can  be  very  Httle  doubt  that  if  we  are  to  seek  the 
close  of  the  second  Gospel  we  shall  find  it,  with  such 
variations  as  we  have  found  between  the  one  edition  and 
the  other,  in  the  first  Gospel,  and  we  thus  have  the 
GaHlean  setting  of  the  Markan  narrative  unbroken  to  the 
end,  while  in  the  third  Gospel  St.  Luke  adopts  an  account 
which  is  far  more  Judaean  than  Galilean.  The  significance 
of  this  will  appear  in  chapter  vi. 

We  may  thus  conclude  that  the  passages  of  the  first 
Gospel  which  we  have  been  considering  are  Markan  in 
origin,  but  it  is  obvious  that  they  have  not  been  taken 
directly  from  the  second  Gospel.  In  the  Additional 
Notes  appended  to  the  fifth  chapter  of  this  work  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  points  of  difference  between  these  sections 
and  the  corresponding  passages  in  Mark  are  many  and 
considerable.    They  are  usually  accounted  for  as  editorial 


88  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

alterations  of  Mark,  but  such  explanations  are  in  the 
majority  of  cases  far  from  satisfactory.  They  raise  as 
many  difficulties  as  they  remove.  If,  however,  the  Markan 
narrative  in  the  first  Gospel  is  prior  to  that  which  we  find 
in  the  second  in  this  sense — that  it  formed  an  earlier 
edition  of  St.  Mark's  work,  written  when  that  evangeHst 
was  in  Egjrpt,  we  have  a  simple  but  a  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  both  resemblances  and  divergences,  and  the 
latter  will  be  seen  to  be  just  those  which  would  appear 
when  a  writer  gives  two  accounts  of  the  same  events,  one 
account  being  written  on  behalf  of  a  Jewish-Christian 
community,  and  the  other  written  at  a  later  date  in  the 
interests  of  a  Gentile  Christian  Church  such  as  that  which 
was  in  existence  in  Rome  about  the  seventh  decade  of  the 
first  century. 

In  making  this  analysis  of  the  first  Gospel  we  are 
perfectly  aware  that  many  questions  of  detail  and  of 
Hnguistic  correspondence  and  difference  have  not  been 
considered.  Different  scholars  have  analysed  this  Gospel 
with  quite  other  results.  Some  of  these  will  be  given  in 
the  Additional  Notes  which  follow  this  chapter.  What 
has  been  offered  here  has  been  an  analysis  on  broad  and 
simple  fines,  taking  into  account  traditional  views  of  the 
book  and  attempting  to  discover  from  internal  evidence 
such  a  differentiation  of  the  several  parts  of  the  Gospel 
as  will  fall  in  with  a  reasonable  interpretation  of  that 
tradition.  It  would  seem  more  Hkely  that  the  books 
which  make  up  the  Synoptic  Gospels  were  constructed 
upon  such  broad  and  simple  fines,  than  that  they  are  a 
mosaic  of  small  portions  of  narrative  and  of  discourses 
thrown  together  according  to  some  elaborate  plan.  Such 
a  method  does  not  seem  to  be  a  fikely  one  in  the  age  in 
which  these  Gospels  assumed  the  form  in  which  we  know 
them  now,  and  the  somewhat  mechanical  method  of 
compilation  suggested  here  may  after  all  come  nearer  the 
truth  than  the  more  elaborate  methods  which  are  offered 


IV.]  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  89 

by  modern  scholarship.  The  present  writer  is  far  from 
disparaging  the  research  of  scholars  to  whom  he  himself 
is  under  such  great  obHgation,  but  the  perils  of  statistics 
are  well  known,  and  it  is  possible  to  build  up  by  the  use 
of  verbal  categories  and  the  enumeration  of  vocabularies 
a  structure  which  will  command  our  respect  for  the 
ingenuity  of  its  composer,  but  which  may  after  all  be 
very  far  from  a  true  representation  of  the  way  in  which 
the  Gospels  came  into  being. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  I 

HARNACK'S  RE-ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  LOGIAN 

DOCUMENT  IN  THE  FIRST  GOSPEL  (THE 

SAYINGS  OF  JESUS,  pp.  127-146.) 

1.  Matt.  iii.  5,  7-12.  21.  Matt.  x.  10\ 

2.  Matt.  iv.  1-11.  22.  Matt.  x.  15. 

3.  Matt.  v.  1-4,  6,  11,  12.        23.  Matt.  xi.  21-23. 

4.  Matt.  V.  39-40.  24.  Matt.  x.  40. 

5.  Matt.  V.  42.  25.  Matt.  xi.  25-27. 

6.  Matt.  V.  44-48.  26.  Matt.  xiii.  16,  17. 

7.  Matt.  vii.  12.  27.  Matt.  vi.  9-13. 

8.  Matt.  vii.  1-5.  28.  Matt.  vii.  7-11. 

9.  Matt.  XV.  14.  29.  Matt.  xii.  22,  23,  25,  27, 

10.  Matt.  X.  24-25.  28,  30,  43-45. 

11.  Matt.  vii.  16-18,  xii.  33.  30.  Matt.  xii.  38,  39,  41,  42. 

12.  Matt.  vii.  21,  24-27.  31.  Matt.  v.  15. 

13.  Matt.  vii.  28,  viii.  5-10,  32.  Matt.  vi.  22,  23. 

13.  33.  Matt,  xxiii.  4,  13,  23,  25, 

14.  Matt.  xi.  2-11.  27,  29,  30,  32,  34-36. 

15.  Matt.  xi.  16-19.  34.  Matt.  x.  26-33.    (6)  Matt. 

16.  Matt.  X.  7.  xii.  32. 

17.  Matt.  viii.  19-22.  35.  Matt.  vi.  25-33. 

18.  Matt.  ix.  37-38.  36.  Matt.  vi.  19-21. 

19.  Matt.  X.  16^.  37.  Matt.  xxiv.  43-51. 

20.  Matt.  X.  12,  13.  38.  Matt.  x.  34-36. 


39. 

Matt.  v._  25-26. 

40. 

Matt.  xiii.  31-33. 

41. 

Matt.  vii.  13,  14. 

42. 

Matt.  viii.  11,  12. 

43. 

Matt,  xxiii.  37-39. 

44. 

Matt,  xxiii.  12. 

45. 

Matt.  X.  37. 

46. 

Matt.  X.  38. 

47. 

Matt  V.  13. 

48. 

Matt,  xviii.  12,  13. 

49. 

Matt.  vi.  24. 

90  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [C3H. 

50.  Matt.  xi.  12,  13. 

51.  Matt.  V.  18. 

52.  Matt.  V.  32. 

53.  Matt,  xviii.  17. 

54.  Matt,  xviii.  15,  21,  22. 

55.  Matt.  xvii.  20^. 

56.  Matt.  xxiv.  26-28,  37-41. 

57.  Matt.  X.  39. 

58.  Matt.  XXV.  29. 

59.  Matt.  xix.  28. 


For  a  criticism  of  the  above  see  Dr.  Willoughby  C.  Allen  in 
Oxford  Stydies,  pp.  235-272.  Dr.  Allen  offers  an  alternative 
rearrangement  which  may  be  examined  by  the  student  and 
compared  with  Harnack's  as  given  above. 

Dr.  Burkitt  considers  that  if  we  wish  to  reconstruct  the 
order  and  arrangement  of  the  lost  document  used  by  Matthew 
and  Luke  (he  will  not  call  it  the  Logia),  we  must  take  the 
outline  of  it  from  Luke  rather  than  from  Matthew.  We  must 
subtract  from  Luke  the  first  two  chapters,  and  those  sections  of 
the  third  Gospel  which  are  derived  from  Mark :  what  is  left 
will  give  us  an  approximate  outline  of  the  document  in  question. 
In  this  Dr.  Burkitt  is  in  agreement  with  Dr.  Armitage  Robinson. 
See  The  Gospel  History  in  Transmission,  pp.  130  fi". 

Dr.  Stanton  also  seems  to  prefer  St.  Luke  in  analysing  the 
Logian  source  known  to  the  first  and  third  evangelists.  His 
analysis  of  this  source  in  the  first  Gospel  is  as  follows : — 

1.  The  ushering  in  of  the  Ministry  of  Christ :  Matt.  iii.  5, 
7-12,  13-17  and  iv.  1-11». 

2.  The  first  stage  in  the  Preaching  of  the  Gospel :  Matt.  v.  3  ; 
vi.  8;  vi.  16-18;  vii.  1-5,  12,  15-21,  24-27;  viii.  5-10,  13; 
xi.  2-11,  16-19. 

3.  The  Extension  of  the  Gospel:  Matt.  ix.  35;  viii.  19-22; 
ix.  37,  38 ;  x.  5%  7-16,  40. 

4.  TheRejectionand  the  Reception  of  Divine  truth:  Matt.  xi. 
21-23,  25-27 ;  xiii.  16,  17. 

5.  Instruction  on  Prayer:  Matt.  vi.  9-13;  vii.  7-11. 

6.  Jesus  and  His  Antagonists  :  Matt.  xxii.  34-40 ;  xii.  22-30, 
43-45,  39-42;  vi.  22,  23  ;  xxiii.  136. 

7.  Exhortations  to  disciples  in  view  of  the  opposition  and 


IV.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  91 

other  trials  that  awaited  them :  Matt.  x.  26-33 ;  xii.  32 ;  vi. 
25-34,  19-21;  xxiv.  43-44,  45-51;  x.  34-38;  xiii.  31-33; 
xviii.  5-7,  15,  21,  22;  xvii.  19-20. 

8.  The  doom  on  Jerusalem,  and  the  things  of  the  end : 
Matt,  xxiii.  37-39 ;  xxiv.  26-28,  37-41. 

Dr.  Stanton  adds  that  there  may  be  among  pieces  peculiar  to 
St.  Matthew  or  St.  Luke  a  few  derived  from  this  source  which 
are  not  included  in  the  above.  But  the  amount  of  such  matter 
is  not  likely  to  have  been  considerable.  In  the  Oxford 
Studies  of  the  Synoptic  Problem  Dr.  Willoughby  Allen 
criticises  Harnack's  reconstruction  of  the  Book  of  Sayings,  and 
offers  an  alternative  of  his  own  based  on  the  principle  that 
the  sayings  in  Matthew,  over  and  above  those  already  found  in 
Mark,  when  put  together  present  us  with  a  homogeneous,  con- 
sistent and  intelligible  work  (no  doubt  only  fragmentary). 
This  source,  he  holds,  was  a  collection  of  Christ's  sayings  and 
discourses  compiled  to  represent  certain  aspects  of  His  teaching, 
and  was  marked  by  a  very  characteristic  phraseology.  Dr. 
Allen's  reconstruction  of  this  source  is  as  follows : 


1.  Matt.  V.  3-12.     Nine  Beatitudes. 

17,    20,    21-24,    27-28,    31-32,    33-48.      The   old 
Law  and  new  righteousness. 

vi.  1-6,  16-18;  vii.  1-5,  6,  12,  15-16,  21-23.     Illustra- 
tions of  the  better  righteousness. 

vii.  24-27.     Concluding  parable. 

ix.  37-38;  x.  5^-8  ;  x.  12-13,  15-16,  23.    The  Mission 
of  the  Disciples. 

X.  24-41.     A  Discourse  about  Persecution. 

xi.  2-11,    12-15,   16-19.      Discourse  about  John  the 
Baptist. 

xi.    20-30.      Woes   upon   certain   cities   followed   by 
thanksgiving  to  the  Father. 

xii.    27-28,    30,    32,    33-37.      A    Discourse    about 
Beelzebub. 

xii.  38-45.     Discourse  in  answer  to  request  for  a  sign. 

xiii.  24-33,  26-52.     Parables  concerning  the  Kingdom. 

xviii.   15-20;  xviii.  21-35.      A  Discourse  on  forgive- 
ness. 

xxiii.  2-36.  A  Denunciation  of  the  Pharisees. 


92  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Matt.  xxiv.  10-12,  26-28,  30,  37-41,  43-51 ;   xxv.  1-12,  14- 

46.     Eschatological  Sayings. 
V.  13-16,  18-19,  25-26,  29-30;  vi.  7-8,  9-13,  14-15, 

19-34;    vii.    7-11,    13-14,    16-19.      Fragments 

inserted  by  editor  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
viii.  11-12,  19-22;  ix.  13;  xii.  5-7,  11-12;  xiii.  16-17. 
XV.  13-14;  xvi.  17-19;  xviii.  7,  10-12-14;  xix.  11-12, 

28. 
xxiii.  37-39.     Detached  Sayings,  which  stood  in  the 

source  in  positions  which  we  cannot  rediscover. 
XX.  1-15 ;  xxi.  28-32  ;  xxii.  2-14.     Other  parables. 

Dr.  Allen  is  more  consistent  than  most  critics  in  omitting  from 
the  Logia  sections  which  really  belong  to  the  Narrative  Source, 
but  it  does  not  appear  to  the  present  writer  that  he  has 
accounted  for  the  tradition  which  connects  the  name  of  St. 
Matthew  with  the  first  Gospel,  and  it  seems  more  likely  that 
the  compilation  of  that  Gospel  was  a  more  simple  matter 
than  the  somewhat  elaborate  arrangement  here  suggested. 
Dr.  Allen  marks  certain  words  and  phrases  as  characteristic 
of  this  source.  They  are  such  as  17  PacriXda  rOtv  ovpavuJv,  6 
Trarrjp  Vfxiov  6  iv  o^'/^a^'o^s,  SiKaLoa-vvr],  ofiOLOio,  6  vtos  rov 
dvOpiOTTOVj  c/xTrpoa-Ocv  c.  Gen.,  7rovr]p6<Sj  01  viroKptTai,  r]  rrapovcria 
Tov  vlov  Tou  dvOputTTov.  It  docs  not  seem,  however,  that  too 
much  weight  should  be  given  to  a  vocabulary  of  this  sort. 
Such  words  belong  to  the  phraseology  commonly  used  in  such 
teaching  as  our  Lord  would  give,  and  they  would  inevitably 
appear  in  any  collection  of  sayings,  however  formless  and 
inconsecutive  they  might  be.  To  us  it  seems  more  likely  that 
the  arrangement  should  be  assigned  to  St.  Matthew,  the 
language  to  his  translator,  or  the  editor  of  the  Gospel  as  we 
know  it.  But,  if  arrangement  belongs  to  the  Apostle,  then  the 
arrangement  of  five  blocks  should  be  taken  into  account. 


IV.] 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  II 

ANALYSIS  OF  ST.  MATTHEW'S  FIVE  COLLECTIONS 
OF  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS 


Section  1,  Matt,  v.,  vi.,  vii. 

V.  1.  els  TO  opos.  Luke  has  I0-T17  eTrl  tottov  TreSivov.  The  eight 
beatitudes  in  Matt,  are  represented  by  only  three  in 
Luke.  In  Luke  the  disciples  are  directly  addressed,  and 
the  beatitudes  are  followed  by  corresponding  woes. 

3.  Tw  TTuevfxaTt,   an  interpretation  of   Trroaxot,   which  may 

have  been  in  the  source,  or  may  have  been  added  by 
St.  Matthew. 

4.  Tr€v6ovvT€<s  .  .   .  TrapaKXrjO-qa-ovTai..      In    Luke  we    read 

KAaiovre?  .  .  .  ytXaa-are,  KXaUtv  is  frequent  in  Luke, 
and  yeAav  would  follow  by  antithesis,  but  the  expressions 
are  Hebraistic  (cf.  Ps.  cxxvi.  6,  Eccl.  iii.  4),  and  may 
have  been  in  the  source. 

11.  xpevSofxevoL  does  not  appear  elsewhere  in  the  Synoptists, 
and  the  word  reads  as  if  it  were  an  interpolation.  It  is 
omitted  in  D.  Latt.  and  Syrs.  The  wording  of  this  verse 
in  Luke  is  entirely  different.  We  infer  from  this  not 
that  St.  Luke  altered  Q,  but  that  he  used  a  different 
collection  of  Logia.     See  p.  56  ff. 

12.  dyaXXLoicrde,  Luke  aKcpT-qa-are.  Cf.  Luke  i.  41,  44  and 
Psalm  68,  16. 

13-16.  Two  brief  parables.  The  former  is  given  by  St.  Luke 
in  xiv.  34  as  having  been  spoken  on  the  way  from  Galilee 
to  Jerusalem.  It  also  appears  in  Mark  ix.  50,  but  it 
does  not  follow  from  this  that  St.  Mark  took  it  from  Q. 
See  p.  109.  The  second  is  given  by  St.  Luke  in  viii.  16 
with  considerable  verbal  differences.  It  also  appears  in 
Mark.  iv.  21  where  it  is  thrown  into  the  form  of  a 
question,  and  seems  to  be  quite  independent  of  the  state- 
ments made  in  Matt,  and  Luke. 

17-48.  Relation  of  the  New  Law  of  the  Kingdom  to  the  Old 
Law. 

18.  Appears  in  St.  Luke's  account  of  the  journey  up  to 
Jerusalem. 


94  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch, 

V.  20.  Note  as  a  Matthaean  characteristic  the  condemnation  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees. 

21-24.  These  sayings  do  not  appear  at  all  in  Luke.  Why 
should  he  have  omitted  them  if  they  belonged  to  a 
source  which  was  common  to  him  and  to  St.  Matthew  1 

25-26.  Derived  by  St.  Luke  from  'the  Travel  Document,' 
xii.  58.  The  wording  varies  in  the  two  versions.  Matt, 
has  ta-di  €vvo(t)v  T^  dvTiSiK^,  while  Luke  has  8o<s  kpyaa-iav 
aTrriXXdxOai  avrov,  So  also  where  Matt,  has  xnrrjphrjSf 
Luke  has  -rrpaKroip. 

27-28.  This  saying  is  not  given  by  St.  Luke.  See  note  on 
vv.  21-24. 

29-30.  This  passage  appears  as  a  *  Doublet'  in  chap.  xix.  9, 
which  latter  is  a  Markan  Section.  Cf.  Mark  x.  11, 
and  Luke  xvi.  18.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  Matthew 
adds  the  words  Trapt/crbs  koyov  vopveLas.  This  is  in 
keeping  with  his  Jewish  '  Tendency.'  See  Allen,  I.C.C. 
in  loco. 

33-37.  Not  in  Luke. 

38-40.  Luke  vi.  29. 

41-42.  paiTL^iLVj  elsewhere  only  in  Matt.  xxvi.  17. 

41.  Not  in  Luke. 

43-48.  Luke  vi.  27-36. 

Matt,  has  lo-ecr^c  reA-ciot,  but  Luke  has  yiveaOt  olKrcip/xovci  * 
which  last  word  appears  only  here  in  the  Gospels.  To 
take  this  as  a  deliberate  alteration  on  the  part  of  St.  Luke 
can  hardly  be  justified, 
vi.  1-18.  Warnings  against  hypocrisy.  Dr.  Wright  says  that 
this  section  contains  *  foreign  matter,'  and  that  Matt.  vi. 
7-15  is  'out  of  place.'  But  this  criticism  presupposes 
a  stricter  coherence  than  is  to  be  expected  from  the 
character  of  the  source  used  by  St.  Matthew.  See  p.  56  ff. 
1-8.  Does  not  occur  in  Luke.  It  is  difiicult  to  think  that 
he  would  have  omitted  them,  if  he  had  used  either  the 
first  Gospel  or  the  same  collection  of  Sayings  as 
St.  Matthew  used. 
9-15.  We  find  in  Luke  that  this  model  Prayer  was  given  on 
an  occasion  when  the  disciples  asked  their  Master  to 
teach  them  to  pray.  Luke  xi.  2-4.  The  version  he 
gives  contains  only  three  petitions  and  no  doxology. 
The  latter  seems  to  be  an  addition  even  in  the  Matthaean 


IV.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  96 

text.  See  Comm.  in  loco.  In  the  Lukan  version  of  the 
first  petition  there  is  a  remarkable  variant  found  in 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  which  reads  as  follows : — iXdiTO)  to 
ayiov  TTViVjxa  e(f)'  rjfias  Kal  KadapLoraTiD  17/xas. 

vi.  11.  cVioijo-iov.  See  Comm.  and  Wright  in  loco.  It  is 
impossible  that  St.  Luke  made  all  these  alterations  and 
omissions  if  the  details  given  us  in  Matt,  had  appeared 
in  his  source  also.  We  conclude  that  he  used  a  different 
source. 

16-18.  Not  in  Luke. 

19-33.  The  importance  of  the  spiritual. 

19-21.  Luke  xii.  32.     Note  difference  of  wording. 

22-23.  Luke  xi.  34,  35. 

24.  Luke  xvi.  13. 

25-33.  Of  this  passage  too  Dr.  Wright  says  that  it  is  *  out 
of  place.'  See  note  on  vi.  1-18.  It  appears  in  Luke  in 
xii.  22. 

vii.  1-12.  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

1-5.  The  Law  concerning  Censoriousness.  Luke  vi.  37-38. 
The  section  which  follows  in  Luke  is  given  in  Matt,  in 
XV.  14  and  x.  24  ff.  A  clear  indication  of  the  non- 
chronological  character  of  the  source,  and  of  the 
difference  between  this  and  the  source  used  by  St.  Luke. 

6.  The  Law  of  Sacrilege.     Not  in  Luke. 

7-11.  The  Law  concerning  Prayer.     Luke  xi.  9-13. 

12.  The  Golden  Kule.     Luke  vi.  31. 

13-23.  Warnings. 

13-14.  This  appears  in  Luke  xiii.  22-25. 

15.  Not  in  Luke. 

16-19.  Luke  vi.  43-45.  The  passage  in  Matt.  xii.  33-35 
contains  similar  teaching,  but  it  is  not  a  true  doublet. 
The  figure  was  one  which  might  have  been  used  by  our 
Lord  with  incidental  variations. 

22-23.  St.  Luke  takes  this  from  'the  Travel  Document.' 
xiii.  26. 

24-27.  Concluding  similitude.  Given  in  Luke  with  differ- 
ences in  wording  which  we  account  for  on  the  ground 
not  of  alterations  made  by  St.  Luke,  but  of  a  difference 
in  the  sources.     See  p.  56  ff. 

28-viii,   1.  An   editorial   note  marking  a  transition  from 


96  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

discourse  to  narrative.  The  phrase  Koi,  iyevero  ot< 
ereAeo-ev  is  Hebraistic.  See  Dalman,  Words  of  JesuSj 
p.  32. 

Section  2,  ix.  37-x.  42. 

ix.  37-38.  St.  Luke  gives  this  (x.  1)  as  a  remark  made  to  the 
Seventy,  but  Matthew  gives   it   as    addressed   to   the 
Twelve,  and  follows  it  with  an  account  of  the  call  of  the 
Twelve  and  of  Christ's  charge  to  them. 
X.   1.  Luke  ix.  1. 

7-10.  Luke  ix.  2-3,  but  part  of  verse  10  appears  in  Luke  as 
addressed  to  the  Seventy. 

7.  St.  Luke  gives  this  charge  in  brief  and  general  terms, 
but  adds  the  characteristic  word  laadai. 

1 1 .  Appears  in  Luke  ix.  4-6  as  spoken  to  the  Twelve. 

12-15.  Appears  in  Luke  as  spoken  to  the  Seventy  (x.  5-12). 

16.  Appears  in  Luke  as  spoken  to  the  Seventy  (x.  3). 

17-22.  This  does  not  appear  in  Luke  at  all.  Dr.  Wright 
describes  it  as  a  Markan  addition.  It  is  true  that  Mark 
has  a  similar  passage  (xiii.  9  ff.),  but  the  introduction  of 
the  Logion  here  indicates  another  source.  That  a 
similar  saying  should  appear  in  Markan  narrative  does 
not  imply  that  St.  Mark  used  Q.  St.  Peter  might  well 
quote  such  a  saying  of  our  Lord's  in  the  course  of  his 
preaching. 

23.  This  is  an  eschatological  saying  which  St.  Matthew 
inserts  here  as  an  appropriate  conclusion  to  the  passage. 

24.  This  is  inserted  by  St.  Luke  in  the  sermon  on  the 
Plain  (vi.  40). 

25.  dpiKTov  T<J)  fxadrjTy  iva  ykv^rai  (is  6  SiSao-KaAos  appears 
in  Luke  as  KaT-qprta-fievos  ttols  larat  los  6  StSacrKa  Aos.  The 
word  KaTr]pTi(Tixivos  appears  only  here  in  the  Gospels, 
though  it  is  not  uncommon  in  the  Pauline  letters.  The 
word  dpeKTov  is  found  only  in  Matt. 

26-33.  St.  Luke  gives  this  as  a  part  of  the  address  to  the 
Twelve  (xii.  3  fif.)  The  Lukan  form  differs  from  the 
Matthaean.  St.  Luke  has  five  sparrows  for  two  farthings. 
Harnack  describes  this  variant  as  'an  enigma,'  and  asks 
whether  sparrows  had  become  cheaper  when  St.  Luke 
wrote !     To  such  straits  are  critics  reduced  when  they 


IV.] 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE 


97 


insist  upon  the  theory  that  the  editors  of  the  first  and 
third  gospels  used  the  same  Logian  source,  or  Q,  and 
that  variants  imply  emendation. 
X.  34-36.  Luke  xii.  49-53.  Where  Matthew  has  {xdxaipaVf 
Luke  has  hiainpia-fxov. 
37-39.  This  appears  in  Luke  as  spoken  when  Christ  was 
journeying  up  to  Jerusalem  (xiv.  25-27).  As  verse  38 
appears  also  in  Mark  (viii.  35),  we  are  not  surprised  to 
find  that  it  occurs  as  a  doublet  in  both  Matthew  and 
Luke.  The  occurrence  of  the  Pauline  words  irepLirouiadat 
and  ((ooyovdv  in  the  Lukan  version  is  to  be  noted.  See 
Acts  XX.  28  and  1  Tim.  iii.  13  for  the  one,  and  Acts.  vii. 
19  and  1  Tim.  6,  13  for  the  other.  They  do  not  occur 
elsewhere  in  the  Gospels. 

40.  The  passage  in  xviii.  5  is  not  a  true  doublet.  The 
sayings  seem  rather  to  have  been  uttered  by  our  Lord  on 
different  occasions,  and  St.  Mark  followed  by  St.  Luke 
has  run  the  two  sayings  together. 

41.  Does  not  occur  at  all  in  St.  Luke. 

42.  This  also  does  not  appear  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel.  It 
occurs  in  St.  Mark's  (ix.  41),  but  it  does  not  follow 
either  that  St.  Matthew  derived  it  from  St.  Mark,  or 
that  the  latter  obtained  it  from  Q. 

xi.  1.  Note  the  formula  of  transition  from  discourse  to  narra- 
tive ;  and  compare  xiii.  53  and  xix.  1. 

The  way  in  which  throughout  this  section  some  of  these 
sayings  are  given  by  St.  Luke  as  spoken  to  the  Twelve, 
others  as  spoken  to  the  Seventy,  while  others  again  are 
given  as  spoken  on  quite  other  occasions,  while  St. 
Matthew  gives  them  all  as  spoken  to  the  Twelve  Disciples, 
is  strongly  confirmatory  of  the  contention  that  each  took 
the  sayings  from  difi'erent  collections  of  Logia,  in  which 
the  occasion  of  utterance  was  not  marked.  St.  Matthew, 
as  making  a  topical  arrangement  of  sayings,  brings  them 
all  under  one  head. 


Section  3,  xiii.  16-53. 


St.   Matthew  has   attached   to   the   Markan   section   which 
contains  the  parable  of  the  Sower  and  its  interpretation  the 


98  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

following  additional  parables  -which  he  took  from  his  Logian 
source. 

V.  16-17.  Luki3  gives  this  as  spoken  on  the  way  up  to  Jerusalem 
when  the  Seventy  returned  from  their  mission. 

18-23.  The  interpretation  of  the  parable  of  the  Sower.  The 
difference  in  phraseology  between  this  account  and  that 
which  appears  in  Mark,  especially  in  the  introductory 
words,  seems  to  indicate  that  the  two  accounts  are  from 
different  sources.  That  there  should  be  a  considerable 
amount  of  agreement  is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  It  does 
not  necessarily  indicate  a  common  origin. 

24-30.  Parable  of  the  Tares.  In  St.  Mark's  gospel  the 
parable  of  the  Sower  is  followed  by  that  of  the  Seed 
growing  secretly,  and  this  latter  is  peculiar  to  Mark. 
This  is  a  clear  indication  that  there  is  no  common  origin 
for  the  two  sections.  It  is  diflScult  to  see  why 
St.  Matthew  should  have  omitted  the  latter  if  it  was  in 
his  source.  The  parable  of  the  Tares  is  not,  as  some 
would  assume,  a  variant  of  the  parable  of  the  Seed 
growing  secretly.  Each  parable  illustrates  the  tendency 
of  the  two  evangelists.  St.  Matthew  inserts  the  one 
because  it  illustrates  the  corruption  of  Judaism. 
St.  Mark  inserts  the  other  because  it  accounts  for  the 
spontaneous  answer  of  the  human  heart, — Gentile 
though  it  may  be — to  the  appeal  of  the  Gospel — the 
good  seed  of  the  Kingdom. 

31-32.  The  parable  of  the  Mustard  Seed.  (Mark.  iv.  30-32. 
Luke  xiii.  18-19.)  All  three  accounts  vary,  and  St.  Luke 
places  the  parable  in  his  account  of  the  journey 
up  to  Jerusalem.  This  parable  then  is  from  three 
different  sources.  St.  Mark's  source  is  Petrine.  St. 
Matthew  derives  it  from  the  Logia;  St.  Luke  gets  it 
from  *  the  Travel  Document.' 

33.  The  parable  of  the  Leaven.     Luke  xiii.  20-21. 

34-35.     An  insertion  from  the  collection  of  Messianic  Texts. 

36-43.  Interpretation  of  the  parable  of  the  Tares. 

44.  Parable  of  the  hidden  Treasure.     Peculiar  to  Matthew. 

45-46.  Parable  of  the  Pearl  of  great  Price.  Peculiar  to 
Matthew. 

47-50.  Parable  of  the  Drawnet.     Peculiar  to  Matthew. 


IV.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  99 

51-52.  The  Householder  and  his  Treasury. 
53.  Formula  of  transition  from  discourse  to  Narrative.    Note 
the  word  fxerrjpev  found  in  only  these  formulae,  cf.  vii.  28. 

Section  4,  xviii.  1-xix.  1. 

V.  1-11.  A  discourse  on  true  greatness.  Considerable  portions 
of  this  are  common  to  all  three  evangelists;  but  Matthew 
differs  so  much  from  the  other  two,  both  in  what  appears 
and  what  does  not,  while  in  addition  he  gives  quite 
another  occasion  for  the  giving  of  the  discourse,  that  it 
is  best  to  consider  the  rest  of  this  chapter  to  belong  to 
the  Matthaean  Logia.  That  it  should  also  appear  in  the 
Markan  narrative  (with  variants)  should  create  no 
difficulty.  Why  should  not  St.  Peter  have  given  the 
gist  of  this  teaching  in  the  course  of  his  preaching? 
The  latter  part  of  the  section  dealing  with  'offences' 
was  given  very  briefly  in  the  proto-Mark.  See  Luke 
xvii.  2. 

12-14.  Parable  of  the  Lost  Sheep.  Taken  by  St.  Matthew 
from  the  Logia.  St.  Luke  has  substantially  the  same 
parable ;  but  he  derives  it  from  '  the  Travel  Document,' 
and  it  appears  in  xv.  3-7. 

15-22.  The  Law  of  Forbearance.  There  is  a  brief  statement 
to  the  same  effect  in  Luke  xvii.  3-4.  St.  Matthew 
follows  the  enunciation  of  the  law  with  the  parable  of  the 
Unforgiving  Servant,  which  does  not  appear  elsewhere. 
Note  the  phrase  crvvalpnv  Adyov  which  occurs  again  in 
Matthew  xxv.  19,  another  of  the  five  sections  of 
St.  Matthew's  collections,  and  not  elsewhere. 

23-35.  The  parable  of  the  Unforgiving  Servant. 
ix.  1.  Formula  of  transition  to  Markan  narrative.     Note  the 
repetition  of  /xerrj/aev.     See  note  on  vii.  28. 

Section  5,  xxiv.  37-xxvi.  1. 

The  close  correspondence  between  what  precedes  this  section 

dth  the  Markan  parallel,  which  is  given  by  St.  Luke  also, 

forbids  our  assigning  it  to  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew.     But  at 

rerse  37  the  editor  of  the  first  gospel  departs  from  his  Markan 


100  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

source,  and  what  follows  may  be  assigned  to  the  Logia.  The 
editor  seems  to  have  joined  on  to  Christ's  words  as  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  His  teaching  with  reference  to  the 
Parousia.  Probably  the  Apocalyptic  language  used  of  both  events 
suggested  his  doing  this. 

V.  37.  In  Luke  the  phrase  17  irapova-ia  tov  vlov  tou  dvOpcoTrov 
appears  as  ev  rats  rj/jLcpaLS  tov  vlov  tov  dvOputTrov.  There  is 
no  reason  whatever  why  St.  Luke  should  have  altered  the 
word  irapovcTLa,  if  he  found  it  in  his  source.  Harnack 
says  that  he  abandoned  it  because  it  belonged  to  the 
sphere  of  Jewish  Messianic  dogma,  and  was  an  unsuitable 
term  for  that  second  coming  in  which  Christians  believed. 
It  is  diflBcult  to  see  how  Harnack  can  hold  this  opinion 
in  view  of  St.  Paul's  use  of  the  word.  See  1  Thess.  ii.  20 
and  elsewhere. 

33.  At  this  point  St.  Luke  inserts  an  additional  parallel  from 
the  history  of  Lot.  If  the  two  evangelists  used  a 
common  source  in  which  it  appeared,  it  is  hard  to  say 
why  St.  Matthew  should  have  omitted  to  give  it.  If  it 
was  not  in  the  source,  then  it  is  equally  hard  to  say 
whence  St.  Luke  derived  it.  To  account  for  it  as  a 
'  scrap  of  oral  tradition  '  begs  the  whole  question  of  an 
oral  basis  for  the  Gospels,  and  against  this  there  is  too 
much  to  be  said.     See  Chapter  i..  Additional  Note. 

40.  Where  Matthew  has  €v  tw  dypip  Luke  has  e-nrl  KXLvrj^. 
Harnack  thinks  that  St.  Luke  altered  Q  in  this  way  so 
as  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  coming  might  be  at  night. 
This  seems  to  be  an  unnecessary  refinement  of  criticism, 

43-51.  This  Logion  appears  in  Luke  in  'the  Travel  Document,' 
xii.  39-40. 
XXV.  1-13.  The  parable  of  the  Ten  Virgins.  This  is  peculiar  to 
Matthew.  It  is  appropriate  to  him  as  it  records  the 
failure  of  the  Jews  to  welcome  the  Messiah. 
14-30.  The  parable  of  the  Talents.  In  spite  of  the  general 
likeness  between  this  parable  and  that  of  the  Pounds 
(Luke  xix.  11-26),  we  do  not  hold  that  the  two  parables 
are  identical.  The  Lukan  parable  appears  to  be  taken 
from  '  the  Travel  Document.'  It  was  spoken  at  Jericho  in 
the  house  of  Zacchaeus,  and  all  the  details  of  the  two 
parables  differ.     The  parable  of  the  Pounds  in  Luke 


IV.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  101 

seems  to  be  based  upon  the  history  of  the  effort  of 
Archelaus  to  obtain  the  title  of  /Saa-iXevs.  See  Com- 
mentaries. If  the  parables  are  identical  and  from  the 
same  source,  then  St.  Luke  has  allowed  himself  an 
altogether  unwonted  amount  of  licence  in  the  alteration 
of  details.  It  is  better  to  consider  that  the  two  accounts 
not  only  differ  in  origin,  but  were  spoken  on  different 
occasions.  Their  common  theme  is  that  of  privilege  and 
responsibility,  and  on  that  subject  we  may  imagine  that 
our  Lord  would  frequently  speak. 
31-46.  The  Last  Judgment.  Peculiar  to  Matthew, 
xxvi.  1.  Formula  of  transition.     See  note  on  vii.  28. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  III 

QUOTATIONS  FROM  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN 
THE  FIRST  GOSPEL 

A  marked  feature  of  the  first  Gospel  is  to  be  found  in  the 
way  in  which  passages  from  the  Old  Testament  are  woven  into 
the  narrative.  A  distinction,  however,  has  to  be  drawn  between 
citations  which  are  given  as  made  by  our  Lord  Himself  in  the 
course  of  His  ministry,  whether  of  teaching  or  of  healing,  and 
those  passages  which  are  evidently  introduced  by  the  unknown 
editor  of  the  Gospel  as  we  have  it.  The  connection  of  the 
former  with  what  precedes  is  always  such  as  would  be  naturally 
used  by  a  speaker  who  wished  to  point  his  remarks  from  the 
authoritative  literature  of  his  people,  but  the  latter  are  in- 
variably introduced  by  the  phrase  '  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet,'  or  its  equivalent.  The 
passages  are  as  follows  : — 

Matt.  i.  22,  23.=Isaiah  vii.  14. 
ii.  5,  6.  =  Micah  v.  1,  4*. 
15.  =Hosea  xi.  1. 
17,  18.  =Jerem.  xxxi.  15. 
23. 
iv.  14,  16.=  Isaiah  viii.  23. 
viii.  17.  =  Isaiah  liii.  4. 


102  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Matt.  xii.  17-21.  =  Isaiah  xlii.  1-4. 
xiii.  35. 

xxi.  4,  5.=  Isaiah  Ixii.  11 ;  Zech.  Ix.  9. 
xxvii.  9-10. 

Of  these  it  is  to  be  noticed 

1.  That  the  passage  from  ii.  23  does  not  occur  in  any  book  of 
the  Old  Testament. 

2.  That  the  passages  in  Matt.  ii.  6,  15,  viii.  17  are 
apparently  cited  from  a  different  text  from  that  which  we  have, 
as  there  is  considerable  difference  between  the  quotation  and 
the  passages  with  which  they  are  usually  identified. 

3.  That  the  passage  in  Matt,  xxvii.  9  is  said  to  be  taken 
from  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  whereas  it  seems  rather  to  corre- 
spond, and  that  not  very  closely,  to  Zechariah  xi.  13. 

4.  In  the  passage  in  xiii.  35  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  reads 
'Ho-aiov  Tov  Trpo(f>T^Tov,  and  Dr.  Hort  seems  to  consider  it  the  true 
reading.  If  so  then  a  passage  is  assigned  to  Isaiah  which  is 
really  taken  from  Psalm  Ixviii.  2. 

5.  The  quotations  are  made  usually  from  the  Hebrew,  but 
some  of  the  passages  seem  to  be  taken  from  the  LXX.  This  is 
notably  the  case  in  Matt.  iii.  3  and  i.  23,  though  some  other 
passages  also  read  as  if  they  were  reminiscences  of  the  LXX. 
On  the  other  hand  the  passages  given  as  quoted  by  our  Lord 
are  wholly  from  the  LXX.  They  belong,  as  it  seems,  to  the 
Markan  source  used  by  the  editor  of  the  first  Gospel,  the  fuller 
citations  found  in  Matt.  xiii.  14,  15  and  xix.  18,  19  being  due 
not  to  the  editor,  but  to  the  source;  that  source  was  not 
canonical  Mark,  but  an  earlier  edition  prepared  especially  for 
Jewish  Christians,  and  for  that  reason  making  a  fuller  reference 
to  the  Jewish  scriptures.  We  need  not  therefore  make  any 
further  reference  to  these  passages. 

Returning  to  the  other  class  we  may  draw  from  the  facts 
enumerated  above  the  conclusion  that  these  quotations  were 
made  from  a  collection  of  similar  passages  taken  from  the 
Hebrew.  Dr.  Stanton  considers  that  they  came  before  the 
editor  in  a  translation  from  an  Aramaic  document,  which  may 
be  described  as  '  a  Catena  of  fulfilments  of  prophecy,'  and  this 
description  would  account  for  the  features  which  they  exhibit. 
Probably  the  name  of  the  prophets,  from  whose  writings  the 
quotations  were  made,  had  not  been  attached  to  them  in  this 


IV.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  103 

Catena,  and  we  can  account  thus  for  the  uncertainty  as  to 
origin  which  some  of  them  exhibit.  Dr.  Stanton  holds  that 
the  collection  was  not  a  bare  Catena,  but  that  the  incident 
which  was  held  to  fulfil  the  prophecy  was  in  each  case  attached. 
It  is,  however,  scarcely  possible  from  such  slender  material  as 
we  possess  to  reconstruct  even  in  outline  the  contents  of  the 
source.  It  may  have  been  full,  or  it  may  have  been  a  very 
incomplete  collection.  The  paucity  of  passages  referring  to  the 
Passion  and  Crucifixion  of  our  Lord  would  indicate  that  it  was 
very  imperfect.  Dr.  Burkitt  considers  that  possibly  the  com- 
pilation was  made  by  St.  Matthew,  and  that  it  was  because  of 
the  use  made  of  it  in  the  first  Gospel  that  the  name  of  that 
apostle  was  attached  to  the  Gospel.  This,  however,  seems  to 
us  a  very  slender  cause  for  giving  St.  Matthew's  name  to  the 
Gospel,  and  we  have  indicated  a  far  more  likely  reason  for  his 
name  being  connected  with  it.     See  pages,  72,  73. 


104  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 


CHAPTER  Y 

THE  SECOND  GOSPEL 

The  priority  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  is  now  generally  accepted 
by  modern  critics.  Out  of  661  verses  in  that  Gospel 
all  but  50  are  to  be  found  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  and  this 
incorporated  matter  so  often  reveals  a  marked  similarity, 
not  merely  in  order  of  arrangement,  but  also  in  vocabulary, 
that  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  the  first  and  third 
evangelists  considered  the  Markan  narrative  which  they 
thus  used  to  be  authoritative.  Their  respect  for  the 
document  shows  itself  in  the  inclusion  in  their  Gospels  of 
many  words  and  phrases  which  we  should  have  expected 
them  to  alter  in  the  use  of  their  editorial  capacity.  Thus 
in  Mark  ii.  l-12=Matthew  ix.  l-8=Luke  v.  17-26  we  have 
an  account  of  the  healing  of  a  paralytic  man  in  which  the 
awkward  parenthesis,  '  then  saith  He  to  the  sick  of  the 
palsy,'  is  reproduced.  In  Mark  ii.  20=Matthew  ix.  15= 
Luke  V.  35  the  removal  of  the  bridegroom  is  spoken  of  by 
the  use  of  the  rare  word  dirapOy.  The  expression  '  to 
taste  of  death '  is  metaphorical,  and  its  alteration  by 
subsequent  editors  might  have  been  expected,  yet  it  occurs 
in  all  three  Gospels  (Mark  ix.  l=Matt.  xvi.  28=Luke 
ix.  27).  The  same  thing  occurs  where  one  or  other  of  the 
two  reproduces  Markan  matter.  In  Mark  xi  v .  20 = Matthew 
xxvi.  23  the  words  eu^otTTTw  and  TpvpXiov  appear,  though 
they  are  not  found  in  the  rest  of  the  iNew  Testament 
writings ;  and  in  Mark  xiii.  33= Luke  xxi.  36  we  have  the 
word  aypv7vvdr€,  which  does  not  appear  elsewhere  in 
the   Sjnioptic    Gospels.     It   has   also   bfien   pointed   out 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  105 

that  where  all  three  Go3pels  quote  from  the  Old  Testament 
the  citations  are  invariably  from  the  LXX. 

Now  if  the  common  Markan  matter  presented  invariably 
such  correspondences  the  conclusion  would  have  been 
easily  drawn  that  the  two  later  editors  had  used  canonical 
Mark,  and  had  transferred  this  Gospel  en  bloc  to  their 
writings.  But  side  by  side  with  these  resemblances  there 
occur  equally  distinct  divergences.  Matter  contained  in 
Mark  is  omitted  by  both  the  first  and  the  third  evangeUsts. 
Outstanding  examples  of  these  are  : 

1.  The  parable  of  the  Seed  growing  secretly  (iv.  26-29). 

2.  The  heahng  of  the  blind  man  at  Bethsaida  (viii.  22-26). 

3.  The  reference  to  the  young  man  with  the  linen  cloth 

(xiv.  61-52). 

Again  matter  contained  in  Mark  is  omitted  by  one  or 
other  of  the  two  later  evangelists.  The  chief  instance  of 
this  is  to  be  found  in  what  is  called  '  the  great  Lukan 
omission'  (Mark  vi.  45-viii.  26).  The  passage  contains 
much  that  would  make  it  pecuHarly  worthy  of  being 
transcribed  by  St.  Luke  with  his  appreciation  of  the 
Gentile  mission  of  St.  Paul,  and  with  his  marked  sym- 
pathy with  women.  In  addition  to  the  story  of  the 
Syrophenician  woman  it  contains  also  much  teach- 
ing on  ceremonial  defilement,  and  this  again  would  be 
welcomed  by  one  who  was  in  sympathy  with  St.  Paul's 
attitude  to  the  Mosaic  Law.  Explanations  of  its 
omission  by  St.  Luke  are  forthcoming,  and  these  will 
be  examined  later  on,  but  it  will  be  sufficient  here  to 
record  the  fact  as  an  outstanding  instance  of  St.  Luke's 
divergence  from  the  second  Gospel  as  we  know  it. 

There  is  yet  a  third  class  of  passages  in  which  the  first 
and  third  evangelists  seem  to  depart  from  a  Markan 
source.  They  do  this  of  course  in  all  passages  which 
belong  to  the  second  document  or  collection  of  Logia. 
But  even  in  narrative  portions  we  come  upon  cases  in  which 


106  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Matthew  and  Luke  contain  incidents  which  do  not  appear 
in  Mark.  A  good  example  of  this  kind  of  passage  is  found 
in  the  healing  of  the  son  (servant)  of  the  centurion.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  third  Gospel  we  have  a  whole  section,  and 
a  very  considerable  one,  in  which  St.  Luke  has  embodied 
the  account  of  our  Lord's  journey  from  GaUlee  through 
Perea  to  Jerusalem,  and  an  additional  section  appearing 
in  the  third  Gospel  would  present  no  great  difficulty.  But 
such  additional  narratives  are  not  found  in  Matthew, 
and  Luke's  '  Travel  Document '  is  from  a  distinct  section 
in  his  Gospel.  The  similarity  between  Matthew's  de- 
scription of  the  heahng  of  the  centurion's  servant,  and  that 
which  appears  in  the  third  Gospel,  makes  it  almost  certain 
that  the  two  evangehsts  derived  it  from  a  common  source, 
and  the  question  arises  what  could  this  source  have  been  ? 
In  the  first  Gospel  it  appears  sandwiched  between  the 
story  of  the  heahng  of  the  leper,  and  the  recovery  of  the 
mother  of  Peter's  wife,  which  are  both  Markan  sections. 
And  yet  the  incident  does  not  appear  in  St.  Mark's  Gospel 
as  we  know  it.  Here  again  we  must  reserve  the  discussion 
of  this  fact  for  a  later  section  of  the  present  work.  It  is 
mentioned  now  by  way  of  illustration  of  points  of  divergence 
from  Markan  narrative  on  the  part  of  the  other  evangehsts. 
Such  differences  have  greatly  comphcated  the  Synoptic 
Problem,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  some  scholars  have 
held  that  the  priority  of  Mark  cannot  be  granted,  while 
others  have  held  that  such  differences  can  only  be  explained 
on  the  assumption  that  all  three  evangehsts  drew  from 
another  source  earher  than  all  three.  The  former  account 
for  what,  on  their  theory,  are  additions  made  by  St.  Mark, 
the  latter  for  what  appear  to  be  omissions  discovered  in 
his  Gospel. 

The  chief  exponent  of  the  theory  that  St.  Mark  was 
dependent  upon  the  first  Gospel  is  Zahn,^  who  finds  that  in 
many  points  Mark  is  secondary  to  Matthew.     We  shall 

1  See  p.  62. 


I 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  107 

not  follow  Zahn  in  discussing  this  point.  His  position  is 
not  accepted  by  the  great  majority  of  scholars.  Those 
who  wish  to  consider  the  matter  will  find  the  arguments 
against  his  contention  admirably  set  forth  by  Dr.  Stanton.^ 
For  our  purposes  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  the 
absence  from  Mark  of  so  much  matter  that  is  contained  in 
Matthew  is  inexpUcable  on  this  theory,  and  though  some 
scholars  take  a  different  view,  we  shall  see  that  there  is  no 
good  reason  for  supposing  that  St.  Mark  used  Q  ^  in  the 
preparation  of  his  Gospel.  His  neglect  of  the  Sayings  in 
the  form  in  which  they  appear  in  Matthew  can  scarcely 
be  accounted  for  if  Matthew  was  before  him  when  he 
wrote.  At  the  same  time  most  scholars  point  out  that 
there  are  in  the  narratives  given  us  by  St.  Mark  certain 
secondary  elements.  Thus  Dr.  P.  W.  Schmiedel  says  that 
it  is  not  possible  to  assign  to  Mark  priority  at  all  points, 
and  that  in  the  Hght  of  secondary  passages  canonical 
Mark  is  a  later  edition.  So  also  Dr.  Salmon  holds  that 
canonical  Mark  is  '  at  once  the  oldest  and  the  youngest 
of  the  Synoptics.'  Now  this  confficting  feature  of  the 
second  Gospel  may  be  explained  without  resort  to  the 
difficult  theory  that  Matthew  is  prior  to  Mark.  It  is 
possible  that  St.  Mark  prepared  his  '  Memoirs  of  St. 
Peter's  preaching '  ^  more  than  once  for  the  benefit  of  the 
different  churches  with  which  he  was  associated ;  and,  if 
canonical  Mark  was  the  latest  of  the  three  editions  thus 
prepared,  it  will  be  just  as  we  should  expect  that  secondary 
elements  should  appear  in  it.  They  would  thus  be 
secondary,  not  to  the  first  Gospel,  but  to  that  Markan 
portion  which  appears  in  it. 

Others,  however,  consider  that  all  the  resemblances  as 
well  as  the  differences  are  accounted  for  on  the  supposition 
that  no  one  of  the  three  evangehsts  was  dependent  upon 
any  one  of  the  others,  but  that  all  three  used  freely  an 
earher  Gospel  which  corresponded  most  closely  to  the 

1  Op.  cU.  p.  38  flF.  2  See  pp.  109,  110.  3  ^i  d.Trofjt.v'nfioveCixa.Ta, 


108  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

second  Gospel,  and  which  contained  both  narrative  and 
discourses.  The  common  origin  would  account  for  the 
resemblances,  and  editorial  freedom  in  selection  would 
account  for  the  differences.  This  theory  has  been  called 
the  theory  of  an  *  Ur-Markus  '  or  original  Mark.  It  has 
never  gained  any  great  amount  of  acceptance  in  England, 
though  German  scholars  have  felt  its  attractiveness.  We 
do  not  advocate  its  acceptance,  for  it  is  inconceivable  that 
if  such  a  Gospel  ever  existed  it  should  have  disappeared 
without  the  shghtest  reference  to  it  having  appeared  in 
the  early  writings  of  the  Christian  Church.  Dr.  Sanday 
rejects  the  theory  of  an  Ur-Markus,  because  the  great 
majority  of  the  coincidences  seem  to  belong  to  a  later  form 
of  text  rather  than  to  an  earlier.  He  calls  this  form  of 
text  *  a  recension,'  because  '  there  is  so  much  method  and 
system  about  it  that  it  looks  Hke  the  deUberate  work  of 
an  editor,  or  scribe  exercising  to  some  extent  editorial 
functions  '  (p.  21).  Dr.  Schmiedel  says  that '  the  difficulty 
with  which  the  hypothesis  can  be  made  to  work  is  increased 
if  we  suppose  that  this  original  Mark  was  nearly  equal  to 
the  canonical  Mark.'  It  becomes  difficult  to  understand 
why  a  new  book  so  little  different  from  the  old  should  have 
been  written.  If  the  original  was  longer  than  canonical 
Mark,  it  becomes  possible  to  assign  to  it  a  considerable 
number  of  sections  (now  preserved  only  in  Matthew  and 
Luke)  not  so  easily  explained  as  derived  from  Matthew's 
and  Luke's  other  sources.  If  it  were  shorter,  then  the 
additions  of  canonical  Mark  are  merely  the  verses  pecuhar 
to  him,  and  these  are  so  very  few,  that  a  new  book  would 
hardly  have  been  deemed  necessary  for  their  incorporation. 
The  theory  which  the  present  work  upholds  is  one 
which,  we  claim,  retains  the  great  advantages  of  the  Ur- 
Markus  in  accounting  for  the  differences  between  the  three 
Gospels,  and  yet  avoids  the  many  disadvantages  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  belong  to  the  hypothesis.  It  consists 
in  an  appHcation  of  the  Proto-  Deutero-  and  Trito-Mark, 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  109 

with  which  Dr.  Arthur  Wright  has  made  us  familiar,  not 
to  oral  tradition  as  he  makes  it,  but  to  documents.  This 
theory  has  also  been  advanced  by  M.  Barnes  in  two  articles 
which  appeared  in  the  Monthly  Review  in  1904.  Before  we 
proceed  to  consider  it  in  detail,  there  are  one  or  two 
questions  which  must  be  cleared  out  of  the  way. 

The  first  of  these  concerns  the  homogeneity  of  the  second 
Gospel.  The  dependence  of  St.  Mark  upon  an  earlier 
document,  for  which  the  convenient  formula  '  Q '  may  be 
adopted,  is  put  forward  with  special  cogency  by  B.  Weiss, 
who  holds  that  St.  Mark  added  excerpts  from  this  docu- 
ment to  what  he  recalled  of  St.  Peter's  preaching.  The 
document  is  held  to  have  contained  both  Logia  and  narra- 
tive, and,  as  it  was  also  before  the  first  and  third 
evangelists,  it  accounts  for  those  passages  in  which  they 
are  in  agreement  against  St.  Mark.  It  also  offers  an 
explanation  of  the  appearance  of  sayings  in  the  second 
Gospel.  The  theory  is  really  a  repetition  of  the  theory 
of  an  Ur-Markus,  the  only  difference  being  that  this 
oldest  source  is  considered  to  differ  from  canonical  Mark 
by  its  inclusion  of  both  Narrative  and  Sayings.  The 
general  objections  to  the  theory  of  an  Ur-Markus  will 
therefore  apply,  to  this,  and  in  addition  it  may  be  said 
that  the  agreement  of  Matthew  and  Luke  against  Mark 
does  not  of  necessity  imply  the  existence  of  an  earher 
Gospel  now  lost  from  which  all  three  drew  their  material. 
It  will  be  shown  that  where  Sajdngs,  properly  so  called, 
are  found  in  the  first  and  third  evangelists,  they  differ  so 
markedly  that  it  is  now  generally  held  that  the  collection 
of  Logia  before  the  one  was  different  from  that  used  by 
the  other,  and  where  they  reproduce  incidents  rather  than 
discourses  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the  edition  of  Mark 
which  they  used  differed  from  that  which  we  have  in 
canonical  Mark.  The  healing  of  the  centurion's  servant  may 
have  been  omitted  in  the  later  edition  which  St.  Mark 
prepared  at  Rome,  though  he  had  included  it  in  his  earlier 


110  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

editions,  and  it  is  also  most  probable  that  many  of  these 
'  agreements '  which  are  found  in  the  non-appearance  of 
personal  and  picturesque  details  are  to  be  explained  in  the 
same  way. 

The  appearance  of  sayings  in  the  second  Gospel  does  not 
present  any  serious  difficulty  in  this  connection.  In  re- 
lating an  incident  in  the  Hfe  of  our  Lord,  St.  Mark  would 
not  of  necessity  be  precluded  from  writing  down  what 
Jesus  said  on  the  occasion  in  question.  It  would  be  part 
of  the  narrative,  and  without  it  the  account  would  be 
pointless  and  imperfect.  That  saying  might  appear  in 
any  collection  of  sayings,  as  a  distinct  Logion,  separated 
from  its  setting,  and  as  such  it  would  find  its  place  in  the 
collection  made  by  St.  Luke  or  by  St.  Matthew.  Its 
appearance  in  Mark  then  would  not  imply  that  he  had 
derived  it  from  such  a  collection.  The  parable  of  the 
Seed  growing  secretly  may  here  be  referred  to.  It  appears 
only  in  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  and  if  it  is  maintained  that  he 
derived  it  from  Q  it  is  very  difiicult  to  beheve  that  both 
St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  by  mere  coincidence  agreed  in 
omitting  it.  The  teaching  it  conveys  would  have  been 
pecuHarly  appropriate  at  any  rate  to  the  disciple  of  St. 
Paul,  and  that  he  should  have  omitted  it  dehberately  has 
never  been  seriously  suggested.  Mr.  Streeter  ^  maintains 
strongly  that  St.  Mark  used  Q,  but  even  he  admits  that  his 
theory  breaks  down  in  being  appHed  to  this  particular 
parable,  and  he  therefore  concludes  that  St.  Mark  knew 
and  used  Q,  '  but  only  to  a  Hmited  extent.' 

Mr.  Streeter  adduces,  as  supporting  the  theory  that  St. 
Mark  used  Q,  the  sections  describing  the  Baptism  of  our 
Lord  and  the  controversy  with  reference  to  the  casting  out 
of  demons.  Both  of  these  sections  have  been  mentioned 
elsewhere  in  illustration  of  the  contention  that  canonical 
Mark  is  a  later  edition  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  as  first  written, 

1  Oixford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem^  p.  178. 


v.] 


THE  SECOND  GOSPEL 


111 


and  to  that  section  of  this  work  we  must  refer  the  student.^ 
The  abbreviated  form,  in  which  the  section  describing 
both  the  Temptation  and  the  Baptism  of  our  Lord  appears 
in  Mark,  is  held  by  Mr.  Streeter  to  show  that  St.  Mark  is 
epitomising  Q.  He  says  that  '  An  original  tradition  is 
always  detailed  and  picturesque,  and  would  hardly  record, 
as  does  St.  Mark,  a  temptation  to  do  nothing  in  particular.' 
But  if  the  Markan  record  was  a  reproduction  of  St.  Peter's 
preaching,  it  is  certain  that  it  would  be  conditioned  by  the 
circumstances  attending  that  preaching  ;  and  since  we  are 
told,  and  have  good  reason  to  beUeve,  that  St.  Peter  spoke 
as  the  occasion  demanded,  the  Roman  edition  might  differ 
just  as  the  account  of  the  Baptism  and  Temptation  actually 
differ  in  canonical  Mark.  What  was  of  intense  interest 
in  Palestine  or  to  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  in  Alexandria 
might  demand  considerable  curtailment  when  prepared 
for  Christians  in  Rome. 

In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  there 
occurs  a  remarkable  section  which  is  known  by  the  name  of 
the  little  Apocaljrpse  (Mark  xiii.  3-37).  It  consists  appar- 
ently of  two  discourses  which  have  been  woven  together 
to  form  one  whole.  The  former  consists  of  warnings  of 
the  approaching  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  bears  a 
close  correspondence  in  style  to  that  class  of  Jewish 
writings  which  have  been  called  Apocalyptic  or  Eschato- 
logical ;  the  latter  consists  of  teaching  concerning  the 
Parousia.  It  appears  in  all  three  Gospels,  and  in  all  there 
is  a  close  verbal  correspondence.  The  record,  however,  in 
the  first  Gospel  is  very  much  closer  to  that  which  we  find 
in  Mark.  The  Lukan  record  differs  mostly  in  omissions 
or  abbreviations,  except  in  Luke  xxi.  24,  which  stands 
alone  and  reads  fike  an  interpolation  reminiscent  of 
Romans  xi.  25.  The  Matthaean  version  again  reproduces 
(chap.  xxiv.  19-22)  part  of  the  discourse  given  by  our 
Lord  on  sending  forth  His  disciples  (chap.  x.  17-22),  and 
1  See  p.  118. 


112  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

the  doublet  is  characteristic  of  that  Gospel,  which  often 
repeats  as  part  of  the  Logia  that  which  appears  in  the 
Markan  narrative. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  as  part  of  the  Markan  narrative 
this  section  is  unique.  It  stands  alone  in  St.  Mark's 
Gospel  as  a  '  discourse  ' ;  it  is  apocalyptic  in  construction, 
and  it  lacks  that  element  of  moral  and  spiritual  significance 
which  we  find  in  the  parables  and  other  Logia.  St.  Mark, 
as  we  have  seen,  does  not  exhibit  that  tendency  to  *  con- 
flation '  which  we  find  in  the  other  evangelists,  but  in  this 
section  there  seems  to  be  an  undoubted  conflation  of 
sayings  relating  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  those 
which  refer  to  the  Parousia.  These  facts  have  given 
rise  to  a  number  of  views  concerning  the  section.  Dr. 
Stanton  considers  that  it  is  to  be  attributed  to  '  some 
Jewish-Christian  who  was  influenced  in  his  general  presenta- 
tion of  the  distinctively  Christian  material  which  he  had 
at  his  disposal,  by  his  Jewish  conceptions,  and  ampUfied 
it  with  expressions  f  amihar  to  him  through  Jewish  writings.' 
If  this  view  be  accepted,  and  to  us  it  seems  the  most 
likely,  there  is  no  reason  why  its  author  should  not  be 
St.  Mark  himself.  The  PauUne  as  well  as  the  Johannine 
writings  show  that  '  Apocaljrpse '  might  characterise  the 
writings  of  Christians,  and  therefore  the  homogeneity  of  the 
second  Gospel  need  not  be  destroyed  by  the  appearance  of 
this  original  section.  Another  view  is  that  of  Mr.  Streeter, 
who  considers  it  to  be  a  document  dating  from  the  year 
70,  and  reveahng,  Uke  the  rest  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  traces 
of  Q.  We  should  prefer  to  say  that  distinct  sayings  of 
our  Lord  which  appear  in  the  second  Gospel  also  appeared 
in  the  collection  of  sayings  used  by  St.  Matthew.  Dr. 
Burkitt  considers  the  section  to  have  formed  a  separate 
fly-sheet  incorporated  into  the  Gospel  by  the  evangehst, 
and  the  allusion  to  '  him  that  readeth,'  in  Mark  xiii.  14, 
is  cited  by  him  in  support.  Others  again  derive  the 
whole  section  from  Q.    It  will  be  observed  that  these 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  113 

authorities  are  agreed  in  treating  the  section  as  a  separate 
document,  apocalj^tic  in  character,  and  incorporated  by 
St.  Mark  into  his  Gospel.  Attempts  to  discover  its  source 
will  necessarily  be  speculative,  and  as  it  is  the  one  section 
in  the  Markan  narrative  which  appears  to  break  into  the 
homogeneity  of  the  Gospel,  we  prefer  to  regard  it  as  coming 
from  the  hand  of  St.  Mark. 

The  absence  of  doublets  from  the  second  Gospel  is 
perhaps  the  strongest  evidence  of  its  homogeneity.  In 
the  first  and  third  Gospels  there  are  many  cases  in  which 
a  saying  of  our  Lord  appears  more  than  once.  These  are 
fully  set  forth  by  Dr.  Stanton,^  and  may  be  studied  con- 
veniently in  that  arrangement.  They  indicate  conclusively 
that  the  compilers  of  those  Gospels  used  more  than  one 
source  ;  and  as  in  nearly  every  case  one  of  the  two  sayings 
occurs  in  the  Markan  narrative,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable 
that  the  doublets  are  due  to  the  writers  combining  with 
Markan  narrative,  which  they  used,  another  source  con- 
sisting largely,  if  not  entirely,  of  sayings.  This  may  be 
seen  illustrated  in  Matthew  x.  19-xxiv.  9-14,  and  also  in 
Luke  viii.  17-xii.  2.  But  when  we  study  the  second  Gospel 
from  this  point  of  view  the  case  is  altogether  different. 
Of  the  many  instances  discussed  by  Dr.  Stanton  only 
two  are  found  in  Mark.^  One  of  these  is  in  the  two 
accounts  of  feeding  the  multitude.  But  it  may  be  urged 
in  reply  that  scholars  are  far  from  agreeing  that  in  this 
we  have  two  accounts  of  one  miracle,  and  in  our  Lord's 
words  recorded  in  Mark  viii.  19,  20  there  seems  to  be  a 
reference  to  two  miracles  rather  than  to  one.  Rejecting 
this  instance  then  we  find  the  one  instance  recorded  in 
Mark  ix.  35,  Mark  x.  41-45,  where  our  Lord  rebukes  the 
disciples  for  their  personal  ambition  to  occupy  high  places 
in  His  kingdom.  This,  says  Dr.  Wright,  is  the  only 
instance  of  a  doublet  in  St.  Mark.     Even  with  reference 

1  Op,  cit.  p.  64  S.  «  Of.  Oa/ord  Studies,  p.  419. 


114  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

to  this,  we  may  plead  that  this  human  weakness  in  the 
disciples  may  quite  easily  have  shown  itself  on  more  than 
one  occasion,  and  the  phraseology  in  which  our  Lord  is 
represented  to  have  corrected  it  is  by  no  means  identical. 
In  one  case,  too.  He  is  said  to  have  reproved  them  by 
bringing  a  Httle  child  into  their  midst,  while  in  the  other 
there  is  no  mention  of  the  child.  But  even  if  we  accept 
this  as  a  true  doublet,  the  single  instance  should  not  be 
allowed  to  weigh  unduly  in  considering  the  homogeneity 
of  the  Gospel. 

In  passing  to  a  more  constructive  criticism  of  the  second 
Gospel  we  proceed  to  consider  the  history  of  St.  Mark 
as  that  is  given  us,  and  such  reference  to  his  connection 
with  the  second  Gospel  as  may  be  discovered  in  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers. 

St.  Mark  was  the  son  of  a  woman  named  Mary,  and  his 
mother's  home  in  Jerusalem  seems  to  have  been  a  place  of 
resort  for  the  disciples.  There  is  a  tradition  that  the 
Upper  Room,  where  the  Lord  celebrated  the  last  Passover, 
as  well  as  the  room  in  which  the  disciples  were  assembled 
at  Pentecost,  was  in  her  house.  Some  have  supposed  that 
the  man  carrying  a  pitcher  of  water,  and  the  young  man 
who  fled  away  naked,  which  are  mentioned  only  in  the 
Markan  narrative,  were  St.  Mark  himself.  Papias  says 
that  '  he  neither  heard  the  Lord  nor  followed  Him,  but 
subsequently  attached  himself  to  Peter.'  The  latter,  on 
being  dehvered  from  prison  (Acts  xii.),  went  at  once  to  St. 
Mark's  house, '  where  many  were  gathered  together  prajdng.' 
He  was  well  known  there  and  was  recognised  by  the  servant, 
whose  name  was  inserted  in  the  record  by  the  person 
from  whom  St.  Luke  derived  the  earher  chapters  of  '  The 
Acts  of  the  Apostles ' — probably  from  St.  Mark  himself. 
We  are  told,  again  by  Papias,  that  St.  Mark  became  the 
interpreter  of  St.  Peter,  and  as  the  latter  was  probably 
unable  to  speak  Greek  with  ease,  this  was  Ukely  enough. 
It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  the  address  given  by 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  116 

St.  Peter  *  in  the  house  of  CorneUus  (Acts  x.  34  ff .)  is  an 
epitome  of  the  second  Gospel,  and  this  becomes  significant 
if  St.  Mark  was  one  of  the  brethren  that  accompanied 
St.  Peter  from  Joppa  (Acts  x.  23).  We  have  only  to 
accept  that  the  newly  baptized  in  Caesarea  wished  to  retain 
some  record  of  St.  Peter's  preaching,  and  that  St.  Mark 
wrote  down  what  St.  Peter  had  said,  and  left  it  with  them. 
Eusebius  tells  us  that  St.  Mark  was  sent  to  Egjrpt  in  the 
first  year  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  which  would  be  in 
A.D.  41,  and  both  Eusebius  and  Jerome  tell  us  that  he 
took  his  Gospel  with  him.  St.  Chrysostom  tells  us  that 
he  wrote  his  Gospel  in  Egypt.  Both  statements  may  well 
be  true  if  St.  Mark,  wishing  the  Church  in  Alexandria  to 
possess  some  record  of  apostoUc  teaching  on  the  facts  of 
Christ's  fife,  re- wrote  '  as  much  as  he  remembered '  (oo-a 
€fivr)fx6v€va-€v)  of  St.  Peter's  addresses.  This  document 
would  pass  into  the  treasured  records  of  the  Church  in 
Alexandria. 

We  next  find  St.  Mark  in  the  company  of  Paul  and 
Barnabas  at  Antioch.  Presumably  he  had  returned  from 
Egypt  to  Jerusalem,  and  accompanied  the  two  apostles 
on  their  missionary  journey,  which  may  be  assigned  to  the 
year  a.d.  50  (Acts  xiii.  5).  He  did  not,  however,  continue 
long  with  them,  as  he  left  them  at  Pamphyha  and  returned 
to  Jerusalem.  Afterwards  he  went  with  Barnabas  to 
Cyprus,  St.  Paul  having  resented  his  leaving  them  in 
Pamphyha.  The  strained  relations  between  St.  Mark 
and  St.  Paul  did  not,  however,  continue  long.  They  were 
together  when  St.  Paul  wrote  his  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 
(Col.  iv.  10),  and  St.  Mark's  name  occurs  again  in  con- 
nection with  St.  Luke's  in  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  (24). 
The  reference  in  the  Colossian  Epistle  shows  St.  Mark  to 
be  on  the  point  of  making  a  journey  from  Rome  to  Asia, 
but  a  few  years  after  this  he  is  again  required  at  Rome  by 
St.  Paul,  who  says  (2  Tim.  iv.  11)  :  '  Take  Mark  and  bring 

1  Zahn,  p.  448. 


116  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

him  with  thee,  for  he  is  profitable  to  me  for  the  ministry,' 
words  which  Zahn  interprets  to  mean  that  St.  Mark  was  in 
possession  of  '  treasure  of  narrative  from  the  hps  of  Peter 
and  of  other  disciples  of  Jesus,  who  were  accustomed  to 
come  and  go  in  his  mother's  house.'  ^  Apparently  he  did 
return  to  Rome,  for  it  is  generally  accepted  now  that  the 
reference  in  1  Peter  v.  13  is  to  be  taken  as  showing  that 
St.  Mark  and  St.  Peter  were  together  in  that  city  when  the 
first  Epistle  of  Peter  was  written.  This  would  be  after 
the  year  a.d.  61.  This  falls  in  with  other  references  in 
Patristic  writings.  In  his  Hypotyjposes  Clement  of 
Alexandria  tells  us  that  it  was  part  of  the  tradition  of 
former  time  that  '  When  Peter  had  pubHcly  preached  the 
word  in  Rome,  and  declared  the  Gospel  by  the  Spirit, 
those  who  were  present,  being  many,  urged  Mark,  as  one 
who  had  followed  him  for  a  long  time  and  remembered 
what  he  said,  to  record  what  he  stated  ;  and  that  he  having 
made  his  Gospel  gave  it  to  those  who  made  the  request 
of  him  ;  and  that  Peter  was  careful  neither  to  hinder  him 
nor  to  encourage  him  in  the  work.'  ^  Zahn  contrasts  the 
last  clause  in  this  quotation  from  the  Hypotyposes  with  a 
statement  made  by  Eusebius  (ii.  15)  to  the  effect  that  St. 
Peter  was  pleased  with  the  zeal  of  St.  Mark,  and  that  his 
work  obtained  the  sanction  of  his  authority  for  the  purpose 
of  being  used  in  the  churches.  Zahn  reconciles  the  two 
statements  by  explaining  that  St.  Peter  took  no  part  in 
the  transactions  that  led  up  to  St.  Mark's  undertaking  this 
work,  but  when  the  work  was  completed,  accepted  it,  and 
approved  of  it.  The  last  Father  to  be  cited  in  this  connec- 
tion is  Irenaeus,  who  says  {Haer.  iii.  11)  that  'Matthew 
pubHshed  his  Gospel  .  .  .  while  Peter  and  Paul  were 
preaching  and  founding  the  Church  in  Rome.  After  their 
departure  Mark,  the  disciple  and  interpreter  of  Peter, 
himself  also  has  handed  down  to  us  in  writing  the  things 
which  were  preached  by  Peter.' 

1  Zahn,  vol.  ii.  p.  430.  «  Ibid.  p.  432. 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  117 

The  patristic  testimony  fits  in  fairly  well  with  such  an 
outline  of  St.  Mark's  connection  with  St.  Peter  as  is  given 
us  in  the  Scriptures.  The  statements  made  by  the 
different  Fathers,  however,  reveal  one  detail  at  least  in 
which  there  seems  to  be  some  contradiction.  Some  of 
them  connect  St.  Mark's  Gospel  with  'Egypt,  while  others 
declare  that  it  was  produced  in  Rome.  It  is  probably 
because  of  this  uncertainty  that  more  emphasis  is  not  laid 
upon  patristic  testimony  in  discussing  the  origins  of  the 
Markan  Gospel.  But  we  have  only  to  suppose,  what 
bears  every  mark  of  probabihty,  that  St.  Mark  wrote  down 
what  he  remembered  of  St.  Peter's  preaching  both  while 
he  superintended  the  Church  in  Alexandria  and  later 
on  when  he  was  again  associated  with  St.  Peter  in  Rome, 
to  see  that  the  apparent  contradiction  between  the  Fathers 
may  be  resolved.  Chrysostom  and  Jerome  are  right  in 
ascribing  the  Gospel  to  Egypt,  and  Clement  is  equally 
right  in  declaring  Rome  to  be  its  birthplace.  We  shall 
show  presently  that  the  Markan  narrative  in  the  first 
Gospel  bears  unmistakable  marks  of  an  Alexandrian 
origin,  while  canonical  Mark  as  distinctly  points  to  Rome. 
But  if  these  marks  appear  in  these  two  Gospels,  the  Lukan 
Mark  has  many  traits  which  indicate  a  Palestinian  origin, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  St.  Mark  should  not  have 
written  an  even  earher  edition  of  his  Gospel  which  was 
left  at  Caesarea,  where  it  would  pass  into  the  hands  of  St. 
Luke  when  he  visited  that  town. 

The  theory  of  three  Markan  editions  has  been  strongly 
advocated  in  England  by  Dr.  Arthur  Wright,  who  claims 
that  it  has  all  the  advantages  without  any  of  the  impro- 
babihty  of  an  Ur-Markus.  He  holds  that  the  first  edition 
is  to  be  found  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  embedded  in  other 
matter,  the  first  Gospel  contains  the  second,  and  the 
second  Gospel  the  third.  Unfortunately  for  its  accept- 
ance Dr.  Wright's  masterly  analysis  of  these  three  editions 
which  he  names  Proto,-  Deutero,-  and  Trito-Mark  has 


118  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

scarcely  had  the  justice  done  to  it  which  it  deserves,  and 
this  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  he  has  woven  this  theory 
into  that  which  assumes  an  oral  basis  as  underlying  all 
three,  the  oral  basis  having  taken  many  years  to  form. 
As  we  have  shown,  there  are  good  reasons  for  rejecting  the 
theory  of  an  oral  tradition  as  basis  for  these  Gospels,  but, 
if  this  part  of  Dr.  Wright's  contention  be  removed,  we 
hold  that  he  has  carried  the  analysis  of  the  Sjmoptic 
Gospels  a  long  way  towards  a  conclusion.  The  char- 
acteristics of  the  Proto-  and  Deutero-Mark  will  be  con- 
sidered in  discussing  the  sahent  features  of  the  first  and 
third  Gospels.  We  shall  here  content  ourselves  with 
noticing  features  of  the  second  Gospel,  which  show  it  to  be 
secondary  to  those  Gospels  where  the  three  have  a  common 
narrative. 

The  references  to  the  Baptist  in  this  Gospel  are  such  as 
indicate  a  later  production  for  a  Gentile,  or  largely  Gentile, 
Church,  such  as  existed  in  Rome,  with  which  Mark's 
Gospel,  as  we  have  seen,  was  associated  from  a  very  early 
date.  To  such  a  Church  the  interest  in  the  Baptist  would 
be  sHght.  It  would  be  quite  otherwise  to  a  Church  which 
belonged  to  Palestine,  or  whose  members  were  Jews  of 
the  Dispersion.  We  know  from  the  fourth  Gospel  how 
great  was  the  interest  aroused  by  the  Forerunner,  and  we 
can  easily  understand  that  his  preaching  and  his  contact 
with  the  Messiah  would  call  for  somewhat  detailed  treat- 
ment. It  would  not,  however,  be  so  in  Rome  a  whole 
generation  after  the  death  of  the  Baptist,  and  thus  we 
find  that  such  references  to  him  as  appear  in  the  second 
Gospel  are,  in  comparison  with  what  we  have  in  the  other 
two,  very  shght.  They  constitute  a  mere  outHne  of  his 
relation  to  Christ ;  just  enough  to  serve  as  an  introduction 
to  the  Gospel.  Even  thus  the  record  is  not  without  those 
vivid  touches  which  make  the  second  Gospel  the  most 
dramatic  of  the  three,  and  the  one  most  full  of  those 
personal  reminiscences  which  have  done  so  much  to  make 


v.] 


THE  SECOND  GOSPEL 


119 


the  Person  of  our  Lord  stand  out  before  the  devout 
imagination  of  succeeding  ages.  These  appear  in  the 
statements  that  the  heavens  were  rent  asunder  at  the 
Baptism,  and  that  during  the  Temptation — an  event 
always  closely  connected  with  the  Baptism — our  Lord 
was  in  the  haunt  of  wild  beasts. 

The  vivid  touches  of  the  second  Gospel  we  consider  to  be 
distinctly  secondary  features.  Their  non-appearance  in 
the  other  Synoptic  Gospels  is  generally  accounted  for  on 
the  ground  of  editorial  omissions  by  the  respective  editors. 
The  reasons  assigned  for  such  action  on  the  part  of  the 
editors  are  twofold.  Many  words  and  phrases  are  held 
to  have  been  rejected  as  being  pictorial  and  contributing 
nothing  of  real  value  to  the  history.  By  editors  who  had 
other  matter  which  they  deemed  of  importance,  and  who 
were  pressed  for  space,  these  would  be  at  once  surrendered. 
But  against  this  it  may  be  urged  that  the  writings  reveal 
no  such  tendency  as  we  should  expect  in  a  modern  writer 
compihng  a  history,  and  careful  to  introduce  nothing  which 
did  not  bear  immediately  upon  the  point  with  which  he 
was  deaHng.  There  is  a  personal,  affectionate  note  in  all 
three  evangeHsts  which  would  lead  them,  and  has  led 
them,  to  admit  matter  which  was  of  no  distinct  historical 
value,  but  which  they  included  because  of  the  reverence 
which  they  felt  for  all  details  of  the  wonderful  story.  The 
principle  of  economy,  too,  does  not  appear  in  other  parts 
of  their  work.  They  admit  phrases  and  even  whole 
clauses  which  we  should  imagine  they  might  have 
excluded  without  loss.  Their  whole  attitude  towards  their 
sources  is  rather  that  of  almost  scrupulous  fideHty  than 
that  of  arbitrary  rejection  of  matter  which  to  them  seemed 
without  value.  Finally,  while  it  might  be  possible  for  one 
or  other  of  the  first  and  third  evangeHsts  to  omit  such 
matter  as  unimportant,  it  is  very  difficult  to  beheve  that 
they  should  have,  by  an  extraordinary  coincidence,  agreed 
upon  what  should  be  omitted  and  what  retained.     Most 


120  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  the  phrases  under  consideration  are  lacking  from  both 
the  first  and  third  evangeHsts.  They  wrote  for  very- 
different  readers,  at  different  times,  and  in  different  places, 
and  yet  we  are  asked  to  beUeve  that  they  fastened  upon 
identical  words  and  phrases  for  excision.  They  include 
the  '  awkward  parenthesis  '  of  Mark  ii.  10,  but  agree  to 
omit  the  statement  that  Jesus  took  the  httle  children  into 
His  arms  when  He  blessed  them.  If,  however,  these 
features  of  the  second  Gospel  were  secondary,  their  non- 
appearance in  the  other  two  is  easily  explained.  They 
do  not  appear  because  they  were  not  found  in  the  edition 
of  Mark  which  they  used.  It  is  sometimes  urged  that  thj 
fuller  statement  is  always  the  earher,  and  that  the  existence 
of  such  picturesque  details  in  the  second  Gospel  indicates 
priority.  But  this  contention  ignores  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  Gospels  were  written.  Those  who  hold  this 
view  are  unconsciously  imagining  that  the  works  were 
produced  under  modem  conditions  which  govern  the 
production  of  Hterature,  whereas  this  Markan  narrative 
reveals  everyvrhere  traits  which  bear  out  the  old  tradition 
that  it  was  but  the  transcript  of  the  preaching  of  St.  Peter, 
and  that  he  told  the  story  not  according  to  some  distinct 
plan  in  his  own  mind,  but  just  as  the  circumstance  and 
need  of  his  hearers  might  demand.  The  whole  narrative 
is  a  record  of  apostohc  preaching.  As  such,  we  contend, 
the  story  which  was  told  last  would  be  the  fullest  and 
most  detailed  of  all.  The  preacher  would  discover  as  he 
went  on  what  details  were  of  most  interest  to  his  hearers. 
Incidents  upon  which  he  dwelt  at  first  might  be  omitted 
on  subsequent  occasions  ;  or  St.  Mark,  in  writing  down  the 
story  for  others  than  those  for  whom  he  wrote  at  first, 
might  omit  one  incident  and  insert  another  which  had 
not  found  a  place  in  the  earliest  writing.  But  always, 
in  response  to  the  craving  of  those  to  whom  the  personal 
hfe  of  Jesus  was  a  matter  of  supreme  interest  and  import- 
ance, the  story,  either  as  given  by  St.  Peter,  or  written 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  121 

down  by  St.  Mark,  would  reveal  in  its  latest  edition  features 
which  would  make  it  vivid,  dramatic,  and  full  of  that 
*  atmosphere '  which  we  may  be  sure  our  Lord  carried 
with  Him  wherever  He  went. 

Another  reason  assigned  for  the  omission  of  such  details 
is  that  the  first  and  third  evangeUsts  would  be  careful  to 
omit  anything  which  seemed  to  be  derogatory  to  the 
person  of  Christ  or  to  the  character  of  the  apostles.  It 
is  not  shown  why  this  should  have  been  less  safeguarded 
by  St.  Mark  than  by  the  others.  Even  if  canonical  Mark 
was  prior  to  Matthew,  it  could  not  have  been  so  by  more 
than  a  few  years,  and  a  tendency  which  appears  in  one 
writing  might  have  been  expected  in  the  other,  since  both 
would  reflect  the  feeling  of  the  same  age.  But  putting 
this  consideration  on  one  side,  we  would  urge  in  reply  that 
the  insertion  of  these  personal  details  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  lower  the  dignity  of  our  Lord  and  His  disciples.  The 
character  of  Christ  is  far  from  being  compromised  by  the 
statement  that  when  He  looked  upon  the  rich  young  ruler 
He  loved  him,  yet  this  detail  is  omitted  from  both  the 
first  and  the  third  Gospel.  In  another  passage  we  read 
that  Christ  was  grieved  for  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts  ; 
this  does  not  appear  in  the  first  or  in  the  third  evangeHst, 
and  its  non-appearance  in  these  Gospels  is  generally  ex- 
plained on  the  Unes  stated  above,  but  it  is  to  be  questioned 
whether  the  statement  shows  as  much  of  the  sternness  of 
Christ's  indignation  as  is  evidenced  in  the  great  denuncia- 
tion of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  given  by  St.  Matthew.^ 
If  any  passage  would  seem  to  reveal  Christ  in  a  condition 
which,  for  want  of  understanding,  might  be  held  to  be 
one  of  weakness,  it  is  that  which  describes  Him  in  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane  praying  that  the  cup  might  pass 
from  Him,  and  acknowledging  the  weakness  of  the  flesh. 
The  disciples  certainly  appear  in  what  may  be  called  a 
compromising  position  on  that  occasion.  Yet  the  incident 
1  Cf.  Mark  viii.  33= Matt.  xvi.  23. 


122  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [CH. 

is  recorded  by  all  three  evangelists.  These  omissions  of 
course  belong  to  the  same  group  of  characteristics  which 
find  an  extreme  example  in  what  has  been  called  the  great 
omission  of  St.  Luke,  and  this  will  be  fully  considered 
in  discussing  the  Markan  sections  of  the  third  Gospel  in 
chapter  vi. 

The  use  of  the  word  cvayyeAiov  is  full  of  significance  in 
a  study  of  the  Markan  narrative  in  the  three  Gospels.  In 
canonical  Mark  the  word  occurs  with  considerable  frequency 
and  is  used  in  an  absolute  sense  (Mark  i.  14,  15,  viii.  35, 
X.  29).  It  does  not  occur  at  all  in  St.  Luke.  Used  absol- 
utely it  is  absent  from  St.  Matthew,  and  in  the  parallels 
cited  above  it  does  not  appear  at  all.  This  is  the  more 
extraordinary  because  St.  Luke  uses  the  verb  cvayyeAtfo/xai 
frequently  (iv.  18,  vii.  22,  viii.  1,  xvi.  16),  and  as  the 
follower  of  St.  Paul  he  would  be  famihar  with  the  marked 
use  of  the  noun  by  that  apostle.  The  editor  of  the  first 
Gospel  has  no  objection  to  the  word  itself  ;  he  uses  it  in 
combination  with  other  terms  (Ix.  35,  xxvi.  13).  There 
does  not  seem  to  be  any  reason  why  he  should  not  retain 
the  word  in  passages  borrowed  from  the  source  which 
presumably  he  was  using.  Few  facts  better  illustrate  the 
value  of  the  three  editions  theory  than  does  this.  The 
Christian  Church  was  slow  to  recognise  the  necessity  for 
any  formulated  or  canonical  presentation  of  the  Gospel 
story.  St.  Peter  gave  his  account  of  the  wonderful  hfe, 
'  in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  his  hearers.'  It  was  only 
after  it  had  become  evident  that  the  return  of  the  Lord  in 
Messianic  glory  would  not  be  as  immediate  as  the  Church 
had  thought,  and  when  meanwhile  the  attempts  to  seduce 
the  Gentile  converts  from  the  faith  made  it  necessary 
that  they  should  have  some  assurance  of  the  certainty  of 
those  things  in  which  they  had  been  instructed ;  it  was 
only  then  that  the  necessity  for  a  guaranteed  account  of 
Christ's  words  and  works  began  to  be  felt.  Thus  we  find 
St.  Paul   speaking  of  the  presentation   of   certain  facts 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  123 

as  being  '  in  accordance  with  my  Gospel,'  and  of  the 
necessity  of  prophesying  '  according  to  the  analogy  of  the 
faith '  (Rom.  xii.  6),  and  he  exhorts  Timothy  to  '  hold  fast 
the  pattern  of  sound  words  which  thou  hast  heard  from 
me '  (2  Tim.  i.  13).  This  resolving  of  experience  into 
historical  statement  is  well  illustrated  by  the  use  of  irCams 
in  the  New  Testament.  This  word  has  a  whole  gamut 
of  uses  in  which  we  can  detect  its  passing  from  a  wholly 
subjective  relationship  to  Christ  into  the  description  of  a 
more  objective  '  Faith/  a  formulary  or  creed  '  once  deUvered 
to  the  saints'  (Jude  3).  If,  as  seems  hkely,  the  Lukan 
edition  of  the  Markan  narrative  was  the  earhest,  we 
should  expect  to  find  the  word  cvayyeAiov  scarcely  used 
at  all.  In  the  later  edition,  embodied  in  the  first  Gospel, 
the  word  would  begin  to  appear,  while  in  trito-Mark  or 
our  Canonical  Gospel — written  later  in  Rome — where  St. 
Paul's  influence  would  be  added  to  St.  Peter's,  the  word 
would  be  fully  estabHshed,  and  this  is  precisely  what  we 
do  find.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  in  the  first  Epistle  of 
Peter  (iv.  17)  the  word  evayyektov  appears  used  in  an 
objective  sense  as  connoting  a  body  of  authoritative 
doctrine  to  which  obedience  was  expected,  and  if  this 
Epistle  was  written  when  St.  Mark  had  rejoined  St.  Peter 
in  Rome  (1  Peter  v.  13)  the  appearance  of  the  word  in  the 
trito-Mark  becomes  all  the  more  significant.  Dr.  Stanton 
calls  attention  to  the  appearance  of  the  word  in  an  absolute 
use  in  canonical  Mark,  but  draws  the  conclusion  that  it  is 
due  to  the  alteration  of  some  reviser  of  the  original. 
Unless  positive  proof  for  this  can  be  adduced,  it  seems  better 
to  accept  the  explanation  given  above. 

The  secondary  character  of  canonical  Mark  is  further 
illustrated  from  the  appearance  within  it  of  Pauhne 
features.  In  the  second  Gospel  the  death  of  Christ  is 
emphasised  in  a  way  which  is  very  marked  when  passages 
are  compared  with  their  parallels  in  the  other  two  Gospels, 
and  in  one  passage  (x.  45)  we  have  the  much  discussed 


124  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

sentence  '  The  Son  of  Man  is  come  ...  to  give  His  life 
a  ransom  for  many.'  The  word  Xvrpov  occurs  only  in 
this  passage  in  the  New  Testament,  but  its  derivative 
airoXvTpiaa-Ls  is  frequent  in  St.  Paul's  letters.  Now  if 
St.  Luke  had  canonical  Mark  before  him  when  he  compiled 
his  Gospel,  on  what  principle  did  he  omit  this  passage  ? 
His  teacher,  St.  Paul,  had  made  this  view  of  a  mediatorial 
death  the  prominent  feature  of  his  teaching.  Why  should 
St.  Luke  fix  upon  this  expression  of  all  others  for  omission  ? 
Nor  do  we  find  much  reHef  from  our  perplexity  when  we 
are  told  that  the  passage  is  not  an  omission  of  St.  Luke's, 
but  '  belongs  to  a  later  recension  of  the  Markan  text.' 
For  it  is  found  word  for  word  in  the  first  Gospel,  and  if 
this  explanation  be  accepted  we  should  have  to  suppose 
that  the  recension  took  place  subsequently  to  St.  Luke's 
use  of  Mark,  but  before  the  first  evangehst  had  incorporated 
the  Markan  narrative  in  his  Gospel.  It  is  no  safe  conclusion 
which  is  based  upon  such  finessing. 

Dr.  Stanton  rightly  observes  that  in  the  emphasis  laid 
upon  the  mediatorial  aspect  of  Christ's  death,  there  is 
nothing  that  is  distinctively  and  pecuUarly  PauHne.  St. 
Peter  also  urges  the  significance  of  our  Lord's  death  when 
he  says  '  ye  were  redeemed  .  .  .  with  the  precious  blood 
as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot,  even  the 
blood  of  Christ '  (1  Peter  i.  19).  The  appearance  of  this 
sajdng  of  our  Lord  in  the  later  editions  may  thus  be  a 
Petrine,  and  not  a  PauHne,  note.  At  the  same  time  St. 
Mark's  association  with  St.  Paul  both  during  the  short 
time  when  he  accompanied  him  on  his  missionary  journey, 
and  later  on  when  he  was  again  associated  with  him  in 
Rome,  may  have  led  him  to  see  a  significance  in  certain 
sayings  of  Christ  as  given  by  St.  Peter,  which  had  not 
impressed  his  thought  and  imagination  when  he  first 
wrote  down  his  memoirs  of  the  preaching  of  that  apostle. 
In  any  case  the  emphasis,  whether  made  by  St.  Peter  or 
by  St.  Mark,  belongs  to  a  later  period  of  apostoKc  teaching. 


v.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  126 

In  St.  Peter's  speeches  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
he  dwells  upon  the  fact  of  Christ's  death  ;  the  interpretation 
of  that  death  belongs  to  a  later  stage  ;  and  even  if  we 
had  not  the  significant  passage  quoted  from  the  Epistle 
to  guide  us,  we  might  have  felt  sure  that  it  would  be 
reflected  in  the  teaching  of  St.  Peter,  especially  when 
he  had  to  declare  the  value  of  that  death  to  Gentiles. 
We  conclude  then  that  the  words  are  absent  from  the 
third  Gospel  because  they  did  not  appear  in  the  edition 
of  Mark  which  St.  Luke  used,  and  they  have  their  place 
in  the  later  editions  because  the  emphasis  they  carry 
belongs  to  a  later  period  in  the  pubhc  ministry  of  the 
apostles. 

If  we  turn  to  the  eschatological  passages  of  the  three 
Gospels  the  same  feature  of  change  of  expression  due  to 
different  circumstances  appears.  Let  us  take  a  single 
example.  The  declaration  of  Christ  concerning  His 
Messianic  reign  made  before  the  council  of  the  chief  priests 
is  given  in  all  three  Gospels  (Mark  xiv.  62,  Matt.  xxvi.  64, 
Luke  xxii.  69),  but  with  significant  alterations.  As  Dr. 
Stanton  points  out,  the  original  form  of  Mark  is  best 
preserved  in  the  first  Gospel.  The  alterations  in  Luke  are 
evidently  editorial  corrections  made  so  as  to  emphasise 
the  fact  of  Christ's  Messianic  'position  being  given  to  Him 
immediately,  whereas  the  record  in  Matthew  declares  that 
He  would  immediately  appear.  In  the  later  edition, 
however,  preserved  for  us  in  canonical  Mark,  the  Church 
had  come  to  see  that  the  Parousia  would  not  be  immediate, 
and  the  words  avr'  apn  are  in  consequence  omitted.  Now 
if  canonical  Mark  was  the  source  from  which  the  later 
evangeHsts  drew  their  account  of  this  declaration,  they 
must  have  added  the  words  indicating  an  immediate 
manifestation  ;  and  that  they  should  do  so  when  every 
day  made  the  Parousia,  which  they  expected,  further 
removed  from  the  time  when  the  words  were  first  spoken, 
is   inexplicable.     Dr.   Stanton   speaks   of   the   significant 


126  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

alteration  in  canonical  Mark  as  being  made  by  the  '  last 
reviser  of  Mark,'  and  we  have  no  objection  to  that  phrase 
except  that  we  hold  that  St.  Mark  was  his  own  reviser. 

Another  strongly  corroborative  indication  of  the 
secondary  character  of  canonical  Mark  is  mentioned  by 
Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott  (Art.  '  Gospels,'  Enc.  Biblica).^  It  is  that 
in  the  second  Gospel  we  have  a  great  many  names  inserted 
which  are  lacking  from  the  parallels  in  the  other  two 
Gospels.  Dr.  Abbott  points  out  that  the  tendency  to 
insert  names  of  persons  is  most  marked  in  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  and  their  presence  in  the  second  Gospel  indicates 
a  late  writer.  If  then  the  editors  of  the  first  and  third 
Gospels  had  these  names  before  them  in  their  source,  but 
chose  to  omit  them,  they  were  acting  contrary  to  the 
common  tendency.  It  is  better  to  suppose  that  the 
names  were  not  included  in  the  earlier  editions  of  Mark, 
but  that  in  an  edition  prepared  much  later,  and  so  far 
away  from  the  scene  of  the  incidents  recorded  as  Rome, 
the  names  would  be  inserted  naturally.  Every  missionary 
knows  that  to  mention  the  names  of  converts  in  published 
accounts  of  their  work  among  a  people  hostile  to  Chris- 
tianity is  fraught  with  peril  to  those  who  are  mentioned. 
Such  names  are  therefore  excluded  from  editions  pubHshed 
where  the  identification  of  individuals  would  be  easy,  but 
appear  in  the  trito-Mark.  The  difficult  question  of  the 
appearance  in  the  fourth  Gospel  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus 
finds  its  best  explanation  in  an  appUcation  of  this  rule. 
We  know  that  there  were  attempts  made  to  put  Lazarus 
also  to  death,  and  other  members  of  the  family  at  Bethany 
seem  to  have  been  threatened.  At  any  rate,  although 
the  Sjnioptists  record  the  saying  of  Christ  that  the  name 
of  the  woman  who  broke  the  bottle  of  spikenard  and  with 
its  contents  anointed  the  feet  of  Jesus,  should  be  mentioned 
wherever  the  Gospel  was  proclaimed,  that  name  was  never 

Omitting  the  name  'Jesus,'  there  are  seventy-three  names  in  Mark  as 
against  twenty-seven  in  Matt,  and  twenty-two  in  Luke, 


v.] 


THE  SECOND  GOSPEL 


127 


mentioned  by  them.  It  was  left  for  the  author  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  long  years  afterwards,  when  probably  both 
Lazarus  and  Mary  were  dead,  to  introduce  the  story  of 
the  raising  of  Lazarus,  and  of  Mary's  expression  of  grateful 
love.  We  shall  therefore  find  an  easy  explanation  of  the 
appearance  of  names  in  the  canonical  Mark.  One  example 
of  this  usage  may  be  specially  referred  to.  We  read  in 
canonical  Mark  that  the  Simon  who  carried  the  cross  of 
our  Lord  was  '  the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,'  a 
reference  which  in  the  way  it  is  introduced  in  the  second 
Gospel  seems  pointless.  But  when  we  return  to  the  list 
of  the  names  of  those  to  whom  St.  Paul  sent  greeting  when 
he  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  we  find  that  one  of 
those  mentioned  is  Rufus.  Now  '  Rufus '  is  by  no  means 
an  uncommon  name,  but  if  the  surmise  is  correct  that  the 
man  to  whom  St.  Paul  refers  was  the  son  of  Simon  of 
Gyrene,  then  the  insertion  of  the  name  in  the  Roman 
edition  of  St.  Mark's  writings  ceases  to  be  abrupt.  The 
reference  would  at  once  be  picked  up  by  Roman  Christians. 
So  again  the  name  of  Pilate  (Mark  xv.  1,  Matt,  xxvii.  2, 
Luke  xxiii.  1)  in  the  Caesarean  edition  and  in  the  Roman 
is  introduced  without  explanation  of  the  position  of  the 
man  named.  Persons  Mving  either  in  Caesarea  or  in 
Rome  did  not  need  information  as  to  Pilate's  position, 
but  in  the  edition  prepared  for  Jews  hving  in  Alexandria 
the  words  are  added  which  informed  the  reader  that  Pilate 
was  '  the  Governor.' 

Geographical  names  have  a  similarly  marked  use.  The 
story,  for  instance,  of  the  dehverance  of  '  Legion '  from 
the  demons  is  given  in  all  three  Gospels,  but  a  well-known 
difficulty,  clearly  marked  in  the  uncertainties  of  the  text 
in  the  passages,  arises  from  the  fact  that  different  names 
are  given  in  all  three.  Accepting  the  best  supported  text 
in  each  case  we  find  that  in  the  first  Gospel  we  have  '  the 
district  of  the  Gadarenes,'  in  the  second  '  the  district  of 
the  Gerasenes/   and   in  the  third   '  the  district  of  the 


128  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Gergesenes.'  There  has  been  much  discussion  arising  out 
of  this  difference,  but  the  best  explanation  we  have  seen 
is  one  which  is  based  upon  the  theory  of  three  editions  of 
Mark,  in  which  the  Palestinian  edition  gives  the  name 
of  the  town  accurately  as  '  Gergesa,'  the  Egjrptian  edition 
gives  the  name  '  Gadara,'  which  was  better  known  abroad, 
while  the  Roman  edition  gives  the  official  name  of  the 
district,  which  was  '  Gerasa.' 

The  Latinisms  of  the  second  Gospel  are  frequent  enough 
to  attract  attention,  and  they  have  generally  been  cited 
in  support  of  the  Roman  origin  of  the  Gospel.  Nothing 
decisive  can  be  inferred  from  the  use  of  these  words  (a 
hst  of  which  is  given  in  the  article  on  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Mark  by  Dr.  S.  D.  F.  Salmond  in  Hastings'  Bible  Dictionary), 
because  they  are  just  such  words  as  an  editor  would  be 
justified  in  altering  if  he  saw  fit  to  do  so,  and  again  they  are 
for  the  most  part  words  which  would  rapidly  come  into 
use  in  outlying  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire,  so  that  if  they 
were  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Markan  narrative  they 
might  or  might  not  be  changed  by  an  editor.  They  are, 
however,  far  more  frequent  in  the  second  Gospel  than 
in  the  others,  and  to  this  extent  they  support  the  Roman 
origin  of  the  canonical  Mark.  One  or  two  changes,  too, 
seem  significant.  Thus  in  Luke  xx.  22  the  regular  word 
for  '  tax '  is  used,  but  in  both  the  Egyptian  and  Roman 
editions  we  have  k^vo-os,  the  Latin  '  Census.'  In  Mark 
XV.  39  the  Graecised  form  of  the  Latin  '  Centurion  '  is  used, 
but  in  the  other  editions  this  appears  in  the  form  kKciTovT- 
dpXV^-  More  significant  perhaps  is  the  passage  in  Mark  xii.  42 
where  St.  Mark  gives  us  the  value  in  Roman  coinage  of 
8vo  XiTrrd,  '  two  mites,'  which,  he  says,  make  a  KoSpdvTrjSy 
Latin  Quadrans.  St.  Luke  mentions  the  8vo  AcTrra,  but 
does  not  give  their  Roman  value,  the  term  being  easily 
understood  in  an  edition  prepared  for  use  in  Palestine. 
In  recording  the  cure  of  the  paralytic  the  evangehsts  use 
a  different  word  in  each  case  for  '  bed.'     In  the  first  Gospel 


T.]  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  129 

the  usual  word  for  bed  is  used  {Kkivrj),  in  the  third  St. 
Luke  uses  the  word  usually  employed  by  physicians  for 
a  sick-bed  {kXlvlSlov),  but  in  the  second  Gospel,  as  we 
have  it,  the  word  /c/aa^/Saros,  the  Graecised  form  of  the 
word  used  for  a  soldier's  wallet,  appears.  Other  similar 
words  are  ^ia-rrjs  (Mark  vii.  4)  and  anreKov\dT(i)p  (Mark 
vi.  27)  which  appear  in  the  trito-Mark  alone.  The 
easily  recognised  '  Praetorium '  appears  in  both  the 
Egjrptian  and  the  Roman  edition,  but  the  way  in  which  it 
is  introduced  in  the  latter  as  a  closer  definition  of  the 
indefinite  avkrj  indicates  again  the  Roman  edition  in 
canonical  Mark. 

The  date  of  the  composition  of  the  second  Gospel  has 
been  given  variously  from  the  earhest  time,  and  this 
uncertainty  seems  to  be  due  to  a  failure  to  distinguish 
between  canonical  Mark  and  earHer  editions  of  the  same 
work.  The  Paschal  Chronicle  places  it  as  early  as  a.d.  40, 
and  Eusebius  assigns  it  to  the  third  year  of  Claudius 
(a.d.  43).  Others  again,  Hke  Irenaeus  and  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  say  that  it  was  written  after  St.  Peter's  arrival 
at  Rome  (a.d.  63).  But  these  are  not  agreed,  for  Clement 
speaks  of  the  Gospel  as  being  in  existence  during  Peter's 
hfetime,  while  Irenaeus  says  that  it  was  written  '  after  his 
departure.'  This  conflict  of  statement  is  probably  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  different  authorities  had  different  editions 
before  them  when  they  wrote.  Modem  scholars  are  fairly 
agreed  in  assigning  canonical  Mark,  for  an  approximate 
date,  to  the  period  between  a.d.  65  and  70.  In  the 
Oxford  Studies,  however,  we  find  the  Rev.  W.  E.  Addis 
asserting  that  the  Gospel  was  written  subsequently  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  same  view  is  held  by 
P.  W.  SchmiedeL 


130  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [gh. 

ADDITIONAL  NOTE  I 
ANALYSIS  OF  THE  SECOND  GOSPEL  WITH  NOTES 

Chap.  i.   1-8.   The  Ministry  of  John  the  Baptist. 

9-13.   The  Baptism  and  Temptation  of  Jesus. 
14-22.  Jesus  returns  to  Galilee,  and  teaches  in  Caper- 
naum. 
23-45.    Worhs  of  Healing. 

i  1.  Thp  word  apx'i  reads  suspiciously  like  an  interpolation 
from  a  Lectionary,  and  it  is  absent  from  one  Syriac 
version,  but  see  Swete  in  loco,  vlov  rov  deov.  See 
Wright,  Synopsis. 

2.  The  quotation  from  Malachi  was  added  in  trito-Mark  as 
the  idea  of  the  Fore-runner  became  established  in  the 
Christian  Church,  without  alteration  of  kv  t$  'Ho-ai^ 
which  appeared  in  the  earlier  editions. 

4.  Cf.  Acts  i.  22.  dp^dfX€Vos  d-n-h  rov  /JaTTTtV/iaTOS  'Icodvov. 
The  phrase  throws  light  upon  St.  Luke's  source  for  the 
early  chapters  of  Acts,  and  upon  St.  Mark's  plan  in  the 
composition  of  his  Gospel. 

5-6.  Not  found  in  the  proto-Mark  used  by  St.  Luke.  Note 
that  John's  condemnation  of  the  different  Jewish  sects 
is  not  found  in  canonical  Mark,  as  it  would  be  inapposite 
in  a  gospel  prepared  for  Roman  Christians. 

8.  Kal  nrvpi     Omitted  from  trito-Mark;  see  page  81.     The 

reference  to  the  winnowing  work  of  the  Messiah  is  also 
omitted. 

9.  John's  self-depreciation  in  the  presence  of  the  Messiah 

would  be  of  importance  to  Jewish  Christians.  It  is 
therefore  included  in  deutero-Mark,  but  omitted  from 
the  other  editions. 
10.  <Txi^o}i.kvov<i.  Avivid  detail  peculiar  to  trito-Mark.  Seep.  79. 
Another  similar  detail  is  found  in  ^v  /Acra  twi/  Orjpioiv. 
The  descent  of  the  Spirit  upon  our  Lord  is  described  in 
practically  the  same  terms  in  each  edition.  This  makes 
the  points  of  difference  all  the  more  significant.  The 
Temptation  is  given  in  outline  in  trito-Mark. 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  131 

i.  20.  fi€Ta  Ttov  fiicrdioTiov.  A  detail  peculiar  to  trito-Mark. 
The  call  of  the  four  disciples  is  not  given  in  proto-Mark. 
In  that  edition  St.  Mark  records  the  later  and  more 
definite  call.  (Luke  v.  1-11.)  dfxcfiLpdkXovras.  See 
Swete  in  loco. 

23-28.  The  cure  of  the  demoniac  is  not  given  in  deutero- 
Mark.  Note  the  close  verbal  resemblance  between 
proto-  and  trito-Mark.  It  is  difl&cult  to  see  why  this 
incident  should  have  been  omitted  from  the  first  Gospel 
if  the  editor  used  canonical  Mark. 

33.  Vivid  details  peculiar  to  trito-Mark. 

41.  <r7rAayxvto-^€is.  Another  detail  peculiar  to  trito-Mark. 
Seep.  119. 

44.  Proto-  and  trito-Mark  have  irpoa-eveyKe  irepi  tov 
KaOapLcrixov  (rov.  But  in  deutero-Mark  we  read  to  Swpov, 
this  simple  expression  requiring  no  explanation  for 
Jewish  Christians. 


Chap.  ii.  1-12.  Jesus  cures  a  paralytic, 

13-22.  The  feast  in  Matthew's  house. 

23-28.  Discussion  on  the  keeping  of  the  Sabbath. 

ii.  2.  A  vivid  detail  peculiar  to  trito-Mark. 

4.  Kpa/SaTTov.  Luke  has  kXlvISlov  ;  Matthew,  kXivy).  For 
Kpa/SaTTos — the  Greek  form  of  Grabatus — see  Swete 
in  loco.  Its  appearance  in  trito-Mark  is  an  indication 
of  Rome  as  the  iDirthplace  of  the  second  Gospel. 

10.  For  the  'awkward  parenthesis,'  see  page  120. 

17.  Matthew  contains  the  quotation  e'Aeos  deXio  Kal  ov  Ova-iav 
— a  passage  frequently  on  the  lips  of  our  Lord.  See 
Matt.  ix.  13,  xii.  7. 

22.  In  proto-Mark  we  have  the  significant  addition  koI  ovScis 
TTiwv  TraAatov  ^cAet  vkov  Acyet  yap'  6  TraAai^s  ^pTyorTos 
kcTTiv.     See  Hort,  Judaistic  Christianity,  pp.  23  flf. 

26.  €7rt  'KPiddap  dpxi-€p€(iis.  This  does  not  appear  in  proto- 
and  deutero-Mark.  'It  was  omitted  on  account  of  the 
historical  difl&culty.'  Hawkins,  Horae  Synopticae,  p.  99. 
It  may,  however,  have  been  an  addition  made  in  the 
third  edition.  'It  may  have  been  an  editorial  note.' 
Swete  in  loco.     See  also  Wright,  Synopsis,  p.  25,  and 


132  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Stanton,  The  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  vol.  ii. 
p.  145. 
ii.  27.  An  addition  in  trito-Mark.  No  explanation  of  the 
verse  as  an  omission  from  proto-  and  deutero-Mark  is 
satisfactory.  See  page  84.  In  deutero-Mark  we  have  an 
addition  bearing  on  the  relation  of  the  priesthood  to  the 
Law,  concluding  with  the  words  rov  Upov  fj-el^ov  ka-nv  SSe. 
Such  a  statement  would  be  full  of  meaning  to  Jewish 
Christians:  the  words  are  therefore  included  in  an 
edition  intended  for  their  use,  and  need  not  be  relegated 
toQ. 


Chap.  iii.   1-6.  Jesus  cures  a  man  with  a  withered  hand. 

7-19.  Jesus   continues   His   Ministry   and    appoints 
twelve  Apostles. 
20-30.  Discussion  on  Mighty  Works. 
31-35.   The  true  ^ Brethren^  of  Jesus. 

iii.  5.  Trcpi^Xexfdfxevos  avTovs  fier'  opyrj's  crvWim-ovfievos  €7rt 
ry  7r(i)piO(TeL  Trj<i  KapBtas  avriov.  An  addition  in  trito- 
Mark  rather  than  an  omission  made  by  Matthew  and 
Luke.     See  page  121. 

6.  fxera  twv  'H/owSiavwi'.     See  Swete  in  loco. 

17.  Note  the  translation  of  /3oavY]py€s — necessary  for  Boman 
Christians.  The  clause  ovs  Kal  aTroo-roA-ovs  wvo/xao-^v 
peculiar  to  the  third  Gospel  may  be  an  editorial  addition. 
The  cure  of  the  Centurion's  servant  given  in  proto-and 
deutero-Mark  does  not  appear  in  trito-Mark.  See  p.  106. 
Our  Lord's  testimony  concerning  the  Baptist  is  also 
omitted.     See  p.  118. 

20-35.  The  controversy  between  our  Lord  and  the  Pharisees 
as  to  His  dependence  on  Beelzebub  for  the  power  to 
perform  miracles  is  not  from  Q,  or  there  would  be 
greater  similarity  in  language.  See  p.  84.  The  two 
verses  in  Matt.  xii.  27-28  are  omitted  from  the  trito- 
Mark  as  having  greater  significance  for  Jewish  Christians 
than  for  Roman  readers. 

30.  €vo\o<i  lo-rai  aloiuiov  d/xapr^/xaTos.  See  Swete  and  other 
Commentators. 

31.  epx^rai.     Note  the  vivid  historic  present. 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  133 

Chap.  iv.     1-34.  Teaching  hy  parables. 
35-41.  Jesus  stills  a  storm. 
V.     1-20.   The  cure  of  the  Gadarene  demoniac. 

21-43.  Jesus  cures  the  woman  with  the  issue  of  blood, 
and  raises  the  daughter  of  Jairus. 

iv.  1-34.  This  section  consists  of  Parables  with  connective 
matter  in  vv.  10-12.  That  this  section  consists  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  rather  than  a  narrative  of  His  doings 
does  not  necessarily  denote  that  its  origin  is  to  be  found 
in  Q.  There  was  no  reason  why  Peter  should  not  refer 
to  Christ's  teaching  in  the  course  of  his  preaching.  If 
the  whole  section  was  derived  from  Q,  it  is  difficult  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  the  parable  of  the  Seed  growing 
secretly  is  not  given  by  St.  Matthew,  and  that  the 
parable  of  the  Leaven  is  omitted  by  St.  Mark. 
26-29.  Peculiar  to  the  second  gospel.  For  a  good  inter- 
pretation of  this  parable,  see  commentary  by  Grould  in 
the  I.C.C.  Series. 
35-37.  Note  the  historic  presents. 

39.  (TiiOTra,  7r€<^t/Acuo-o.     Vivid  touches  peculiar  to  Mark. 
Y.  1.  Tepau-rjviov.    See  above,  p.  127.    Compare  Wright, /S^2^wops*s 
in  loco. 
3-5.  A  vivid   addition    in  trito-Mark.     The  account  of  this 

incident  is  much  abbreviated  in  deutero-Mark. 
15.   IfxaTLo-fxevov,  a  word  which  occurs  nowhere  else  in  New 
Testament.     St.   Luke  retains  the   aTra^   Xeyofxevov,  a 
fact  difficult  to  explain  except  on  the  ground  of  fidelity 
to  a  document. 
30.  An  interpretation  of  the  personal  consciousness  of  Jesus 

peculiar  to  trito-Mark.     Cf.  Luke  viii.  46. 
41.  TaXiOa,  Kovfxi.     Note  the  translation  of  the  Aramaic — a 
necessity  to  Roman  Christians.     The  remarkable  fulness 
of  detail  in  this  section  indicates  its  Petrine  origin. 

Chap.  vi.  1-6.     Jesus  teaches  in  the  Synagogue. 

7-13.   The  Mission  of  the  T'welve  Disciples. 
14-29.   The  death  of  John  the  Baptist. 

vi.  3.  o  T€KTOiv  6  vlhs  Trjs  Mapias.     The  corresponding  phrase 
in  deutero-Mark  is  6  tov  tcktovos  vios.      If  canonical 


134  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Mark  was  before  the  editor  of  the  first  Gospel  then  this 
term  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  tendency  to  enhance 
the  supernatural  view  of  our  Lord  which  is  brought 
forward  to  account  for  features  of  the  first  Gospel.  If, 
however,  canonical  Mark  is  a  later  edition,  the  difference 
can  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  Virgin  Birth  had  been  accepted  by  the  Church  when 
the  Roman  edition  was  prepared  by  St.  Mark, 
vi.  13.  tJA-ck^ov  cAaio).  An  addition  in  the  third  edition.  Of. 
Mayor  on  James  v.  14. 

14.  6  /3aa-c\€v<s'llpw8r)s.  Cf.  Luke  xix.  12.  Herod's  mission 
to  Rome  to  seek  the  title  of  '  King '  would  be  known  in 
that  city,  and  it  therefore  appears  in  the  Roman  edition. 
The  part  played  by  Herodias  in  the  death  of  John  was 
not  included  in  proto-Mark,  a  sufficient  reference  having 
been  made  in  Luke  iii.  19. 

27.  a-TTCKovXaTtap.  An  obvious  Latinism  which  appears 
appropriately  in  the  Roman  edition.     See  Swete  in  loco. 


Chap.  vi.  30-44.  Jesus  feeds  the  Jive  thousand, 
45-52.  Jesus  walks  on  the  sea. 
53-56.  Jesus  cures  the  sick  in  Gennesaret. 

vi.  34.  ^(TTT Xay XV Lcr 6 rj.     A  vivid  touch  in  the  third  edition. 

39.  a-vfXTroa-La  a-vfxiroa-La.  See  Blass,  Gr.  p.  145.  The  phrases 
in  Luke  and  Matthew  are  KaraKXivare  avrov^  KXicrlas 
and  dvaKXidrjvai  respectively.  These  may  be  editorial 
emendations  of  what  is  generally  considered  to  be  a 
Semitic  construction.  See,  however,  Moulton's  Pro- 
legomena, p.  97.  €7rt  T$  X^^P^  X^/'^'V*  Cf*  John 
vi.  10. 

40.  Trpaanal  irpaa-iai.  See  p.  119,  and  Gould  and  Swete  in 
loco. 

45-52.  Omitted  in  proto-Mark.  Peter's  attempt  to  walk  on 
the  water  appears  only  in  deutero-Mark.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  whence  the  evangelist  derived  it,  if  he  was 
dependent  on  canonical  Mark.  Its  omission  from  the 
latter  would  be  casual. 

53.  7rpo(r(opixLcr9r)(rav.     A  vivid  detail. 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  136 

Chap.    vii.     1-23.  Discussion  on  ceremonial  uncleanness. 

24-30.  Jesus  cures  the  daughter  of  the  Syrophenician. 
31-37.  Jesus  cures  the  deaf  mute. 
viii.    1-10.  The  feeding  of  the  four  thousand. 

11-21.    Warning  against  Jewish  sects  and  Herod. 
22-26.   The  blind  man  at  Bethsaida. 
27-38.  Peter's  Confession^  and  first  announcement  of 
Passion. 

Yii.  1.  At  this  point  in  the  Markan  narrative  occurs  'the  great 
omission*  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel.     See  p.  155. 

2.  These  rerses  peculiar  to  the  second  gospel  give  exactly 
the  explanation  which  would  be  necessary  to  Koman 
readers.  They  would  not  be  necessary  for  Jewish 
Christians  in  Alexandria,  and  accordingly  they  are  not 
found  in  the  deutero-Mark. 

11.  Ko/)/3av,  note  again  the  translation  of  the  Aramaic  word. 
Note  also  that  the  severity  of  the  strictures  against  the 
Pharisees  are  modified  in  trito-Mark.     See  p.  71. 

19.  Kadapi^iov  iravra  to,  jBpoi^iara.  See  Field,  Notes  on  the 
Translation  of  the  New  Testament^  pp.  31,  32,  and 
compare  Acts  x.  15. 

24.  The  clauses  peculiar  to  St.  Mark  in  this  verse  illustrate 
again  the  vivid  detail  of  trito-Mark,  and  indicate  the 
eye-witness — St.  Peter. 

25.  'EAAt^vis  ^vpo(fioviKLa-(ra  t^  yevci.  See  Swete  in  loco^ 
and  above  p.  155. 

32-37.  Peculiar  to  trito-Mark.     It  is  difficult  to  see  why 
this  incident  should  have  been  omitted  from  the  first 
Gospel  if  canonical  Mark  was  before  the  editor. 
34.  €(f)cf>a6d.     Again  the  Aramaic  word  is  translated, 
viii.  10.  AaX/xavovdd.      In  Matthew  we  have  MayaSdv.      See 
Swete    in    loco    and    Hastings,    D.    B.^     sub.    verb. 
*  Magada.' 
11-21.  Here  again  the  strictures  pronounced  against  the 
Pharisees  are  less  severe  than  in  Matthew.     Also  the 
sign  of  Jona,  which  does  not  appear  in  trito-Mark,  is 
given  without  explanation  in  deutero-Mark. 
22-26.  This   section  is  peculiar  to  trito-Mark.     Again  we 
may  ask  why  it  should  be  omitted  from  Matthew,  if  the 
editor  used  canonical  Mark. 


136  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

viii. 27-29.  The  commendation  of  St.  Peter  is  not  given  in  trito- 

Mark. 
33.  We  may  ask  why  our  Lord's  severe  rebuke  to  St.  Peter 

should  appear  in  Matthew,  if  the  'tendency'  of  that 

Gospel  was  to  shield  the   reputation  of  the  disciples. 

See  p.  121. 
35.   Kttl  Tov  evayyiXCov.     See  p.  122. 

Chap.  ix.  1-28.  The  Transfiguration  and  the  cure  of  a  de- 
moniac hoy. 

29-32.  Second  announcement  of  the  Passion. 

33-50.  Discussion  on  true  greatness,  toleration,  and 
offences. 

ix.  1-13.  In  theLukan  parallel  (chap,  ix.),  three  verses  (31-33) 
are  peculiar  to  that  Gospel.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how 
St.  Luke  could  have  inserted  in  this  narrative  a  scrap  of 
this  sort  taken  from  some  external  source.  If  it  was  in 
the  Markan  edition  which  he  used,  this  difficulty  is 
removed. 

11-13.  Here  we  have  verses  which  do  not  appear  in  Luke, 
and  the  'omission'  is  as  difficult  to  explain  as  the 
'  insertion '  mentioned  in  the  preceding  note. 

15.  io6i'r€9  avTov  i^eda/jL/Si^Orja-av.  A  vivid  addition  in 
trito-Mark. 

19.  ttTTio-Tos  /cat  8L€(TTpafi/x€vr).  So  in  proto-  and  deutero- 
Mark.  The  words  Kal  Siea-Tpafifxhr]  are  omitted  in 
trito-Mark.     See  p.  121. 

21-25.  Another  vivid  detail  in  trito-Mark.  The  differences 
in  the  three  accounts  of  this  section  are  easily  accounted 
for  on  the  theory  of  three  editions. 

30.  ovK  -qOeXcv  Lva  Tis  yvol.  An  addition  in  trito-Mark. 
Its  non-appearance  in  Matthew  and  Luke  cannot  be 
explained  as  due  to  abbreviation  for  want  of  space, 
since  there  would  be  no  great  gain. 

31.  The  details  of  our  Lord's  death  and  resurrection  do  not 
appear  in  the  third  Gospel.  Is  it  conceivable  that  Luke 
would  have  omitted  them  if  he  had  used  canonical 
Mark? 

33.  In  the  Matthaean  Mark  we  have  here  the  incident  of  the 
paying  of  tribute  money.     This  can  scarcely  be  assigned 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  137 

to  Q.      See  Oxford  Studies  in  Syn.  Problem,  p.  137. 

Note  in  the  Matthaean  record  the  use  of  the  phrases 

TOL  8i8paxfJ-(if  and  ov  reAet  ScSpaxfxa. 
ix.  36.   ivayKakicrd/xevos  avTO.      A  vivid  touch  (cf.  X.  16). 
38-41.  This  section  does  not  appear  in  deutero-Mark. 
I:  43-48.  St.  Luke  did  not  find  this  section  in  the  proto-Mark ; 

it  therefore  does  not  appear  in  the  third  Gospel. 
44-50.  These  verses  have  their  counterpart  in  the  collections 

of  sayings  used  by  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke.     They 

appear  in  the  Markan  narrative  as  a  feature  of   the 

trito-Mark. 

Chap.  X.    1-12.  A  discourse  on  divorce. 

13-22.  Little  children  and  the  rich  young  ruler. 

23-31.  A  discourse  on  riches  and  rewards. 

32-45.  Third  announcement  of  the  Passion.     Zebedee's 

sons. 
46-52.   The  healing  of  Bartimceus. 

X.  1-12.  This  section  does  not  appear  in  proto-Mark.  In  the 
Roman  edition  divorce  is  forbidden  in  absolute  terms, 
but  in  deutero-Mark,  intended,  we  must  remember,  for 
Jewish  Christians,  an  exception  is  made  in  cases  of  open 
adultery  {Tropveia).  The  Jewish  '  tendency '  of  the  first 
Gospel  is  thus  fully  maintained. 

14.  "qyav oLKT-qcr^v  and  €vayKaki(Tafx€vo<i  (16)  are  vivid  touches 
peculiar  to  trito-Mark.     So  also  is  TrpoaSpafim',  v.  17. 

18.  TL  pa  Aeycis  ayaOov;  Here  Luke  and  Mark  are  in  agree- 
ment. The  difi'erent  form  which  appears  in  Matthew 
Tt  /x€  ipior^s  TTfpl  Tov  dyaOov  ;  may  be  an  editorial  altera- 
tion. But  see  Gould  and  Swete  in  loco.  The  alteration 
is  not  so  great  as  at  first  sight  appears,  for  in  trito-Mark 
the  emphasis  is  not  on  the  pronoun  yue,  but  on  dyadov^ 
and  the  fuller  statement  of  Matthew  is  implied  in  Mark. 

21-22.  lp.fSk€xf'as  ■qyairrja-ev  and  (TTvyvd(ras  are  further  illustra- 
tions of  the  vividness  of  trito-Mark.  No  reason  appears 
why  the  editors  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  should 
have  omitted  these  words.     See  p.  119. 

25.  rpvpidXia.  This  appears  in  proto-Mark  as  Tprjpia,  and  in 
deutero-Mark  as  TpvTrrjpLa.  The  difference  may  be 
explained  on  editorial  grounds.     The  Lukan  word  rp^/xa, 


138  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

as  well  as  /SeXovr),  which  follows,  is  a  medical  term  (see 
Hobart,  The  Medical  Language  of  St  Luke,  p.  60),  and 
Tpv/xdXLa  is  a  late  and  rare  word. 
X.  29.  In  the  corresponding  verse  in  deutero-Mark  we  have  a 
considerable  enlargement  of  this,  and  the  added  words 
are  in  agreement  with  the  Jewish  *  tendency '  of  which 
we  have  had  so  many  examples  in  the  first  Gospel. 
Tov  tvayyeXlov.     See  p.  122. 

32.  Note  the  extraordinary  vividness  of  this  verse,  and  com- 
pare Matthew  xx.  17  and  Luke  xix.  -28. 

34.  aTTOKTevovcnv.  This  is  the  word  used  in  proto-  and  in 
trito-Mark.  In  deutero-Mark  we  have  o-rav/owo-at. 
There  is  no  need  to  suppose  that  this  was  an  alteration 
made  by  the  editor  reflecting  the  actual  event.  As 
Gould  points  out,  the  scourging  implied  crucifixion,  and 
St.  Mark  may  have  used  one  work  in  the  first  edition 
and  the  other  word  in  the  second. 

35-40.  This  section  is  omitted  in  proto-Mark.  If  it  be  held 
that  St.  Luke  purposely  omitted  it  to  save  the  credit  of 
the  disciples  concerned,  we  may  ask  why  it  was  not  also 
omitted  from  the  first  Gospel.  Further,  although  St. 
Luke  does  not  record  this  special  incident,  ho  records 
their  <f>iXov€LKLa  in  xxii.  24. 

39.  o  TTivu)  irUcrde.  The  diflference  in  the  use  of  tenses  (see 
Comm.)  increases  the  vividness  of  the  incident  in  trito- 
Mark,  when  we  compare  the  words  used  in  Matthew. 
Otherwise  the  language  of  the  two  accounts  reveals  a 
close  correspondence. 

45.  XvTpov.  This  word,  air.  Xey.  in  the  New  Testament, 
appears  also  in  deutero-Mark.  See  Commentaries,  and 
p.  123  supra. 

46-52.  In  the  first  Gospel  we  have  two  men  cured  when 
Christ  was  leaving  Jericho.  In  the  third  Gospel  there 
is  only  one  man  cured  when  Christ  was  entering  it.  In 
the  second  only  one  man  is  mentioned ;  his  name  is  given 
and  he  was  cured  when  Christ  was  leaving  the  city.  Dr. 
Wright  (Synopsis  in  loco)  claims  that  *  under  the  oral 
hypothesis  with  its  proto-Mark  the  whole  mystery  is 
clear.'  "We  agree  with  Dr.  Wright  that  if  St.  Luke  had 
canonical  Mark  before  him  it  is  difficult  to  account  for 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  139 

the  discrepancy,  but  against  Dr.  Wright  we  would  urge 
that  a  stereotyped  tradition,  sufficiently  fixed  to  account 
for  the  repetition  of  the  unusual  word  Xvrpov  in  v.  45, 
would  not  have  allowed  discrepancy  here.  The  theory 
of  three  editions  in  documentary  form  affords  a  better 
solution.  There  were  probably  two  blind  men,  the 
better  known  of  which  is  referred  to  by  name  in  the 
Roman  edition.     See  p.  126. 

Chap.  xi.    1-11.  Jesus  enters  Jerusalem  in  triumph. 

12-26.  The  unfruitful  fig  tree.     The  cleansing  of  the 

Temple. 
27-33.  The  authority  of  Jesus. 

xi.  1.  Br]9avLav.  In  deutero-Mark  we  read  B7)6<f>ayri  and  in 
Luke  we  have  Brjd(f>ayr]  Kal  B-qOaviav.  There  is 
uncertainty  as  to  the  text,  but  the  longer  reading  in 
Mark  seems  to  have  been  introduced  to  harmonise  with 
Luke.     See  Wright  in  loco. 

2.  TTwAov.  In  deutero-Mark  we  have  ovov  Kal  ttwAov.  This 
is  probably  an  editorial  alteration  made  to  harmonise 
with  the  quotation  from  Zecharia. 

4.  The  additional  details  in  trito-Mark  is  characteristic  of 
this  edition. 

10.  wo-avva.     See  Wright  and  Swete  in  loco. 

12-26.  In  deutero-Mark  the  cleansing  of  the  Temple  pre- 
cedes the  cursing  of  the  fig-tree.  This  does  not  suggest 
either  a  fixed  oral  tradition,  or  the  use  of  canonical 
Mark  by  the  editor  of  Matthew.  It  does,  however, 
suggest  a  story  told  more  than  once,  and  a  casual  change 
in  the  order  of  events.  The  story  of  the  fig-tree  does 
not  appear  in  the  third  Gospel.  Now  whether  the 
interpretation  of  this  incident  be  on  the  line  of  'the 
power  of  faith,'  or  on  that  of  '  the  doom  of  an  unfruitful 
nation'  (see  Romans  xi.  17-22),  the  subject  would 
have  been  appropriate  to  St.  Luke  with  his  Pauline 
point  of  view.  It  would  thus  be  hard  to  account  for 
his  omission  of  it.  We  conclude  that  it  did  not  appear 
in  proto-Mark. 

27-33.  The  correspondence  between  all  three  accounts  is 
here  very  close. 


140  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Chap.  xii.    1-12.  National  failure.     Parables. 

13-40.  Discussion   with   Pharisees,   Sadducees,    and 

others. 
41-44.  The  widovi's  mite. 

xii.  1-12.  In  proto-Mark  and  in  trito-Mark  only  one  parable  is 
given,  that  of  the  Wicked  Husbandmen.  In  deutero- 
Mark  we  have  also  the  parables  of  the  Two  Sons  and  of 
the  Royal  Marriage  Feast.  These  would  appropriately 
find  a  place  in  an  edition  intended  for  Jewish  Christians 
to  whom  the  causes  of  national  rejection  needed  to  be 
made  plain.  It  is  not  necessary  to  refer  these  two 
parables  to  Q,  merely  because  they  do  not  appear  in 
canonical  Mark.  Even  where  all  three  give  the  same 
parable,  the  Jewish  'tendency'  appears  again  in 
Matt.  xxi.  43-45. 

4.  €K€<fiaXL(i)(rav.  For  this  aTra^  Xeyofievov,  see  Wright  and 
Swete  in  loco. 

9.  In  proto-Mark  we  have  the  addition  aKovo-avres  eTvav  /xr) 
yevoLTo;  the  latter  part  of  this  sentence  is,  with  the 
exception  of  this  passage,  only  found  in  Paul.  It  may 
therefore  be  an  editorial  addition  inserted  to  give  an 
adequate  connection  to  the  passage. 

1 1,  After  this  verse  in  deutero-Mark  we  have  an  addition 
in  xxi.  43,  which  again  is  appropriate  to  that  edition 
as  referring  to  the  divine  rejection  of  Israel.  Matt.  xxi. 
44  is  a  harmonist's  interpolation. 

14.  KTJva-ov.  See  Comm.  for  the  transliterated  Latin  word. 
St.  Luke's  (f>6pov  is  editorial. 

28-34.  This  incident  is  omitted  in  proto-Mark.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  why  St.  Luke  should  have  omitted  it  if 
it  was  in  the  document  before  him.  Note  that  the 
rebuke  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  is  again  more 
severe  in  deutero-Mark. 

41-44.  The  story  of  the  widow's  mite  does  not  appear  in 
deutero-Mark.  Dr.  Wright  speculates  that  this 
'  deliberate  omission '  may  have  been  due  to  some  local 
reason  arising  from  the  circumstances  of  the  church  in 
Alexandria.  To  us  it  seems  better  to  suppose  that 
St.  Mark  inadvertently  omitted  it  in  preparing  his 
second  edition  than  that  the  editor  suppressed  it  for  local 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  141 

reasons.  St.  Mark  wrote  *  as  lie  remembered,*  and  the 
incident  might  escape  recollection  on  one  occasion,  and 
be  recalled  on  others. 
xii.  42.  AeTTTtt  8vo  6  ka-n  KoSpdvTrjs.  In  trito-Mark  the  value 
of  the  AcTTTci  is  given  in  Roman  coinage,  the  quadrans 
being  one-fourth  of  an  'as.'     See  p.  128. 

Chap.  xiii.  1-37.  Eschatological  discourses. 

xiii.  1  KarkvavTL  tov  upov.  Another  detail  peculiar  to  trito- 
Mark.  The  difficult  question  of  the  '  Little  Apocalypse  ' 
has  been  discussed  above.  See  p.  111.  The  reader  is 
also  referred  to  Dr.  Stanton's  discussion  of  the  question 
{Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  pp.  115  ff.). 
14.  /SSeXvyfia  rrjs  ipr)fjLiocr€(Ds.  This  expression  is  peculiar 
to  the  deutero-Mark.  See  Swete  and  Wright  in  loco,  iv 
TOTTO)  ayta>  an  addition  to  deutero-Mark  which  would  be 
understood  by  Jewish  Christians.  The  verses  Luke  xxi. 
20  and  24,  peculiar  to  that  Gospel,  are  best  explained  as 
late  additions  made  ex  post  eventu.  See  Wright  and 
Commentaries. 

Chap.  xiv.     1-11.  The  conspiracy  against  Jesus.     His  anointing 

at  Bethany. 
12-25.  The  Paschal  Supper. 
26-42.  Jesus   ivithdraws   to   the   Mount   of    Olives, 

His  agony. 
43-72.   The  hetrayal  and  the  trial  of  Jesus. 

xiv.  3-11.  The  anointing  of  Jesus  at  Bethany  has  no  place  in 
the  third  Gospel ;  for  the  attempted  identification  of  the 
d/xaprwAos  in  Luke  vii.  37  with  Mary  of  Bethany  is  now 
abandoned  by  practically  all.  Of  this  incident  also  we 
claim  that  it  is  inconceivable  that  St.  Luke  should 
suppress  it  as  he  must  have  done  if  canonical  Mark  was 
before  him.  Its  non-appearance  in  proto-Mark  is  to  be 
accounted  for  as  above,  p.  126. 

12-25.  On  the  Markan  date  for  the  Paschal  Feast,  see 
Wright  and  Swete. 

17.  St.  Luke  here  inserts  four  verses  which  he  derived 
from  his  special  source  (xxii.  15-18).     See  p.  181. 

22.  The  giving  of  the  cup  before  the  bread  is  peculiar  to 
St.  Luke,  who  may  have  been  influenced  by  the  Pauline 


142  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

order,  1  Cor.  x.  15.  St.  Luke  also  makes  the  declaration 
of  betrayal  come  after  the  partaking  of  the  bread  and 
wine.  These  facts,  added  to  the  considerable  linguistic 
difference  from  the  Markan  record,  indicate  that 
St.  Luke  is  in  this  section  dependent  largely  upon  his 
special  source.  Seep.  181. 
xiv.  27-31.  The  prediction  of  St.  Peter's  unfaithfulness  is  given 
in  all  three  Gospels.  No  attempt  is  made  by  the  editors 
of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  to  shield  him.  Yet  this 
supposed  'tendency'  is  held  by  many  to  account  for 
many  of  the  differences  between  canonical  Mark  and 
the  other  two  Gospels.  The  Passion  of  our  Lord  and  His 
shrinking  from  'the  cup'  is  also  given  by  all  three 
evangelists.     See  p.  121. 

51-2.  These  verses,  peculiar  to  the  second  Gospel,  are 
generally  considered  to  have  been  added  to  the  Petrine 
Memoirs  by  St.  Mark,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
evangelist  himself  was  the  veavla-Kos. 

55.  The  failure  to  find  witnesses  against  Jesus  is  not 
recorded  by  St.  Luke,  and  the  identification  of  Peter  by 
the  servants  differs  from  that  given  in  Matt,  and  Mark. 
For  example,  in  Mark  xiv.  69  we  read  17  7rai8io-/<ry  irdXiv 
where  St.  Luke  writes  crepos.  Such  differences  indicate 
again  St.  Luke's  special  source.  In  the  verse  just  cited 
Matthew  has  aAA.7;,  and  we  may  well  ask  why  the  editor 
should  have  altered  canonical  Mark  if  it  was  before  him. 
Such  discrepancies  constitute  a  common  human  feature 
when  a  story  is  told  more  than  once. 

65.   Trpo^-^Tcvo-ov.     Deutero-Mark  adds  n's  fo-rtv  6  xaiVas  ere ; 

72.  €7rtj8aAwv — a  difficult  word  peculiar  to  trito-Mark.  See 
Field  {J!^otes  on  Translation,  etc.,  p.  41),  Wright  and 
Swete. 

Chap.  XV.  1-15.  Jesus  before  Pilate. 
16-41.   The  Crucifixion. 
42-47.   The  Burial  of  Jesus. 

Chap.  xvi.  1-8.    The  Resurrection. 

XV.  The  suicide  of  Judas  is  given  in  the  first  Gospel  alone.  Cf. 
Acts  i.  18.  The  reference  in  Acts  i.  shows  this  to  have 
been  part  of  the  Markan  tradition  in  spite  of  its  non- 


v.]  ADDITIONAL  NOTE  143 

appearance  in  canonical  Mark — that  is,  if  we  may  hold 
that  St.  Luke  derived  the  earlier  chapters  of  Acts  from 
St.  Mark.  If  the  account  of  this  incident  be  not  referred 
to  deutero-Mark  it  is  exceedingly  diflficult  to  account 
for  its  appearance  in  the  first  Gospel. 
XV.  1.  In  proto-  and  trito-Mark  Pilate's  name  is  given  without 
addition.  In  deutero-Mark  he  is  called  6  -qyejjuov.  This 
word  is  used  to  describe  Pilate  seven  times  in  the  first 
Gospel,  once  in  the  third,  and  not  at  all  in  the  second. 
Pilate's  title  and  position  would  be  well  known  in  both 
Caesarea  and  Rome.  For  Herod's  part  in  the  trial  of  our 
Lord,  see  Oxford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem,  p.  230, 
and  in  this  work  p.  163. 

7.  ftera  twv  o-Taoriao-Twv  .  .  .  ev  ry  <rrd(r€L ;  this  is  peculiar 
to  trito-Mark ;  the  fact  of  the  insurrection  and  the  names 
of  the  insurgents  would  be  known  in  Rome. 
10.  In  deutero-Mark  we  have  here  the  additional  incident  of 
Pilate's  wife's  dream,  and  a  little  lower  that  of  Pilate 
washing  his  hands.  Dr.  Willoughby  Allen  refers  these 
to  *  Palestinian  tradition.'  Their  relation  to  what 
precedes  and  to  what  follows  certainly  suggests  inter- 
polation into  Markan  matter. 

16-41.  The    Lukan    differences    here — all    derived    from 
St.  Luke's  special  source — are  to  be  carefully  noted. 

21.  Tov  irarkpa  'AXe^dvSpov  Kai   'Pov^ov.    Cf.  Romans  xvi. 
13,  and  above,  p.  126. 

22.  The  variants  in  this  verse  are  instructive : 
Proto-Mark  reads  Kpaviov  (Latin  Calvarium). 
Deutero-Mark   reads   ToXyoda   6   ka-n    Kpaviov    tottos 

Trito-Mark  reads  FoA-yo^a  6  kam  fieOepfirjvevofievov. 
40.  yvvaiK€<s.     The  first  and  third  evangelists  identify  them 
with  the  women  that  had  followed  Jesus  from  Galilee 
and  had  ministered  to  Him.     See  p.  163. 
xvi.  1-8.  The  different  indications  of  time  in  the  three  editions 
are: 

Proto-Mark — opdpov  fSaOkays. 

Deutero-Mark — orpe  ae  craft /Sdriov  ry  kin<^(oorKO-vcrrj  eis 

fxiav  araftftoLTtov. 
Trito-Mark — Xtav  irpm  t-q  fiL§.  twv  a-a/Spdrfav, 


144  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Note  that  the  fourth  evangelist  seems  to  correct  the 
Synoptic  tradition,  according  to  his  custom,  by  writing  Trpwt 
o-KOTias  €TL  ov(rr]<s.  For  the  evidence  for  and  against  the  theory 
of  the  mutilation  of  this  chapter  in  Greek  texts  see  the 
Commentaries. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  II 

SAYINGS  FOUND  IN  MARKAN  NARRATIVE 

In  the  Oxford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem  (p.  267  ff.), 
Dr.  Willoughby  Allen,  discussing  the  Book  of  Sayings  and  the 
first  Gospel,  describes  certain  sayings  as  being  inserted  by  the 
editor  of  the  first  Gospel  in  Markan  narrative.  Such  passages 
are  as  follows : 

Matt.  viii.  11-12.  Luke  xiii.  28-29. 

ix.  13. 
xii.  5-7. 

11-12.  xiii.  15  and  xiv.  5. 

xiii.  16-17.  X.  23-24. 

XV.  13-14.  vi.  39. 

xvi.  17-19. 
xviii.  7.  xvii.  1. 

xix.  11-12. 
28. 

Such  a  statement  seems  to  be  based  upon  the  presupposition 
that  the  sayings  of  Jesus  have  no  place  in  the  Markan  record. 
To  us  it  seems  far  more  likely  that  such  sayings  are  not 
insertions  made  by  the  editor  into  Markan  record,  but  that  they 
belonged  to  that  record,  and  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  taken 
from  any  book  or  collection  of  sayings  by  the  editor  of  the  first 
Gospel. 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  146 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  LUKAN  SOURCES 

The  third  Gospel  presents  us  with  a  variety  of  special 
features  each  of  which  is  of  great  importance  with  reference 
not  only  to  the  Gospel  itself,  but  also  to  the  conditions  in 
which  all  three  were  prepared.  The  common  authorship 
of  this  Gospel  and  the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles — 
an  authorship  which  is  now  estabUshed  as  that  of  St. 
Luke,  *  the  beloved  physician,'  and  the  companion  of  St. 
Paul — enables  us  to  bring  together  facts  and  features  of 
both  writings  which  throw  considerable  light  upon  each. 
Each  is  prefaced  by  a  short  introduction  of  great  import- 
ance, and  from  this  we  learn  : 

1.  That  the  Gospel  was  a  '  treatise  concerning  all  that 

Jesus  began  both  to  do  and  to  teach  until  the  day 
in  which  He  was  received  up.'  The  words  used, 
while  they  do  not  exclude  the  addition  of  other 
matter,  seem  to  indicate  that  the  more  considerable 
parts  of  this  Gospel  consisted  of  a  narrative  portion 
which  we  have  already  seen  was  Markan  in  origin, 
and  some  collection  of  sajdngs  or  teachings  of  our 
Lord,  which  may  possibly  have  been  the  collection 
made  by  St.  Matthew,  but  which  we  have  seen  to 
be  more  probably  dravni  from  some  collection  or 
collections  of  disjointed  '  Logia '  used  by  both  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke. 

2.  That,  when  St.  Luke  wrote,  many  accounts  of  the 

deeds  and  words  of  Jesus  were  in  existence,  and 
that  these  were  in  documentary  form.    The  date 


146  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

assigned  to  the  production  of  the  Gospel  varies 
with  the  scholar  who  discusses  it.  Some  place  it 
as  late  as  a.d.  95,  others  give  the  date  as  a.d.  70. 
Those  who  assign  the  later  date  are  largely  in- 
fluenced by  the  theory  that  St.  Luke  wrote  his 
book  of  the  Acts  with  the  writings  of  Josephus 
before  him.  This,  however,  is  far  from  receiving 
a  general  acceptance.  St.  Luke's  use  of  Markan 
narrative  need  not  determine  the  date  to  be  even 
so  late  as  a.d.  70.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
probabiUty  is  that  he  used  a  much  earlier  recension 
of  St.  Mark's  Gospel.  It  has,  however,  been  held 
that  St.  Luke  differs  so  much  from  St.  Mark  in 
his  description  of  the  doom  of  Jerusalem,  and 
where  he  differs  seems  so  clearly  to  have  been 
influenced  by  what  had  actually  transpired,  that 
few  are  wilUng  to  assign  an  earHer  date  than  a.d. 70. 
The  references  in  the  introduction  do  not  really 
help  us  in  deciding  for  a  date  later  than  A.i^.  70 ; 
for,  if  our  inferences  as  to  the  nature  of  Q  and  as 
to  an  earlier  edition  of  St.  Mark's  writings  hold 
good,  St.  Luke  might  speak  of  '  many '  writings 
at  a  much  earlier  date.  The  passages  in  which 
he  describes  details  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
and  departs  from  Mark  in  doing  so,  are  also  open 
to  question.  Those  passages  are  xix.  43,  44, 
xxi.  20  and  24.  But,  as  Principal  Bebb  has  shown,* 
these  need  not  indicate  prophecy  ex  post  eventu. 
The  question  is  not  of  vital  importance  from  the 
point  of  view  of  our  present  inquiry,  and,  while 
we  hold  that  possibly  the  date  of  this  Gospel  may 
finally  be  fixed  even  earHer  than  a.d.  70,  we  shall 
accept  the  date  assigned  by  Hamack,  who  places 
it  between  the  years  78  and  93,  inchning  to  the 
earlier  rather  than  the  later  of  the  two.  That 
1  Hastings,  Bible  Dictionary,  iii.  p.  168. 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  147 

these  accounts  were  in  documentary  form  appears 
from  the  contrast  between  the  words  dvaTa^aa-Oai 
Siriyqa-Lv  and  irapkhoa-av.  For  while  the  word 
Str^yr^o-is  might  be  used  for  a  spoken  narrative, 
yet  it  is  clear  that  St.  Luke  means  to  distinguish 
between  a  tradition  which  has  been  '  deUvered ' 
direct  to  him,  and  by  which  he  has  been  able  to 
verify  other  accounts,  and  those  accounts  of  which 
he  says  that  there  are  many.  The  word  avara^aa-Oai. 
too  seems  more  appropriate  to  the  formaUty  of  a 
document  than  to  the  more  uncertain  oral  tradition. 
That  this  verification  at  first  hand  by  those  who 
were  '  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of  the  word ' 
was  open  to  St.  Luke  is  of  immense  importance, 
as  indicating  an  early  date  for  his  work  and  a 
sufficient  authority  for  the  account  which  he  gives. 
We  shall  see,  when  we  examine  his  sources,  that  the 
phrase  can  be  amply  justified. 
3.  In  compiHng  his  Gospel  from  such  sources,  St.  Luke 
adopted  an  order  which  may  fairly  be  styled 
chronological.  For  while  the  word  ko^c^tJs,  which 
is  rendered  in  EngHsh  versions  '  in  order,'  need  not 
refer  to  order  in  time,  yet  a  study  of  the  writing 
which  follows,  and  a  recognition  of  the  difference 
between  his  method  of  arranging  the  Logia  of  Jesus 
and  that  followed  by  St.  Matthew,  shows  that  the 
word  was  used  in  this  sense.  Dr.  Bartlet  ^  considers 
that  the  historical  order  is  better  preserved  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Gospel,  and  that  '  it  soon  fades 
away  to  be  followed  by  a  series  of  sections  more 
or  less  loosely  Hnked  together.'  He  considers  that 
these  Hnks  belong  for  the  most  part  to  the  '  special 
source  '  used  by  St.  Luke,  who  follows,  in  the  earlier 
part  of  his  writing,  the  material  which  came  to  him 
from  St.  Mark.  It  is  probable  that  this  closer 
1  studies  in  the  Sj/noptic  Problem,  p.  346. 


148  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

chronological  '  nexus '  is  due  to  the  character  of 
the  two  writings  before  him,  and  to  his  respect  for 
each,  rather  than  to  any  slackening  of  purpose  to 
maintain  a  chronological  order  on  the  part  of  St. 
Luke.  '  The  Travel  Document '  especially  seems 
to  have  been  compiled  as  a  series  of  notes  taken 
during  a  memorable  journey,  and  the  evangeUst 
would  probably  consider  that  the  fact  of  the 
journey  gave  an  historical  unity  to  the  whole 
document,  and  that  it  was  unnecessary  for  him 
to  rearrange  the  incidents  there  mentioned.  St. 
Luke's  respect  for  his  sources  seems  to  have  been 
so  great,  that  even  where  we  should  have  expected 
an  editor  to  have  corrected  his  source  in  using  it, 
he  does  not  do  so.  When  he  comes,  however,  to 
the  collection  of  '  sa5rings '  which  he  used,  inas- 
much as  there  was  in  these  no  attempt  at  chrono- 
logical connection,  he  allows  himself  considerably 
more  freedom  in  arrangement. 

The  first  of  the  sources  used  by  this  evangehst  is  that 
which  he  obviously  derived  from  St.  Mark.  The  section 
which  deals  with  the  birth  and  infancy  of  our  Lord,  which 
is  unique,  will  receive  separate  treatment,  and  as  it  is 
obviously  non-Markan  it  need  not  be  considered  here. 
But  omitting  this  for  the  present  we  notice  in  the  Markan 
section  which  follows  several  important  differences  from 
canonical  Mark.  In  iii.  1  he  inserts  a  distinct  chrono- 
logical note,  mentioning  a  Roman  emperor  by  name  and 
thus  fixing  the  point  of  time  at  which  his  narrative  begins. 
This  is  not  found  in  Mark,  and  must  be  considered  a  dis- 
tinctly Lukan  addition  intended  to  carry  out  his  intention 
of  chronological  treatment.^  This  is  followed  by  an  account 
of  the  ministry  of  the  Baptist,  which  is  given  in  fuller 
detail  than  we  find  even  in  the  first  Gospel,  while  it  is  so 
1  See  Stanton,  op.  cit.,  p.  228  ff. 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  149 

much  fuller  than  what  we  have  in  the  second  Gospel  that 
in  comparison  the  latter  seems  to  be  a  mere  reference  intro- 
ducing the  more  important  ministry  of  our  Lord.  Now 
this  account,  taken  with  the  baptism  and  temptation  of  our 
Lord,  forms  so  conspicuous  a  feature  of  this  Gospel  that  we 
are  bound  to  consider  its  source.  It  cannot  have  come 
from  canonical  Mark.  If  it  was  so  derived  there  is  an 
amount  of  ampUfication  suggested  which  we  do  not  find 
in  the  rest  of  St.  Luke's  writing,  for  he  keeps,  as  we  have 
seen,  very  closely  to  his  source.  Nor  can  we  assign  it  to 
'  oral  tradition,'  for  its  correspondence  with  the  parallel 
section  in  the  first  Gospel  suggests  a  written  source,  while 
the  points  of  difference  with  that  section  show  us  that  it 
was  a  similar,  but  not  an  identical,  document  which  was 
before  St.  Luke.  The  commonly  accepted  explanation 
is  that  it  was  taken  from  Q,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
takes  for  granted  that  Q  contained  a  certain  amount  of 
narrative,  and  if  this  be  allowed  at  the  beginning  of  that 
document  we  may  properly  ask  why  it  should  not  be 
allowed  also  at  its  close.  But  if  Q  contained  a  history  of 
the  Passion  it  must  be  considered  to  have  been  another 
Gospel,  and  the  difficulties  which  gather  round  the  theory 
of  an  Ur-Markus  would  be  presented  here  again. ^  The 
difficulties  which  gather  around  Q  are  immensely  reduced, 
if  we  can  beUeve  that  this  document  was  made  up  of  dis- 
courses properly  so  called.  Such  difficulties  would  have 
to  be  faced  if  we  were  shut  up  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
section  was  taken  from  Q,  but  there  is  no  need  for  us  to 
accept  that  position.  If  the  theory  of  a  proto-Mark  be 
allowed,  and  if  this  edition  was  that  which  came  before 
the  notice  of  St.  Luke,  we  can  see  at  once  why  his  account 
of  the  Baptist's  ministry  was  so  much  fuller  than  that 
which  appears  in  the  second  Gospel,  and  we  can  see  also 
why  it  should  have  so  much  in  common  with  that  given 
in  the  first  Gospel,  and  yet  differ  from  it  in  details.    It 

I  See  p.  108. 


150  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

becomes  unnecessary,  too,  to  disturb  the  homogeneity  of 
Q,  and  that  is  a  considerable  gain. 

Does  the  history  of  St.  Luke  then  afford  any  occasion 
in  which  he  could  have  met  with  an  early  Markan  version 
of  St.  Peter's  preaching  ?  Now  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
consider  the  Markan  source  of  this  Gospel  without  at 
least  some  reference  to  the  companion  work  which  we 
have  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  masterly  treatise 
of  Hamack,  entitled  Luke  the  Physician,  has  placed  the 
common  authorship  of  the  two  books  beyond  dispute, 
and  in  the  book  of  the  Acts  we  have  a  very  distinct  con- 
nection indicated  between  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.  In 
the  story  of  St.  Peter's  escape  from  prison  we  have  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  writer's  acquaintance  with 
Mark's  home  ;  he  even  knows  the  name  of  the  servant  maid 
who  opened  the  door  to  St.  Peter.  He  has  recorded  the 
circumstances  which  led  to  the  separation  of  St.  Paul 
from  St.  Mark  in  chapter  xv.  It  is  probable  that  the 
earher  portion  of  the  Acts,  which  shows  the  prominence 
of  St.  Peter  in  the  earHest  days  of  the  Christian  Church, 
was  derived  from  this  '  Interpreter '  of  St.  Peter's,  and  it 
has  been  pointed  out  that  the  Greek  of  this  section, 
when  compared  with  that  of  the  *  We  sections,'  is  more 
Hellenistic  and  conforms  to  that  of  the  Markan  narrative 
in  the  Gospels. 

But  if  the  first  section  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is 
Markan,  the  second  may  be  as  clearly  connected  with 
Philip.  Harnack  points  out  the  significance  of  the  refer- 
ence to  Philip's  removal  to  Caesarea  in  chapter  viii.,  and 
explains  the  abruptness  with  which  the  reference  closes 
by  supplying  the  words  '  and  there  I  met  him  at  a  later 
time.'  This  later  occasion  of  course  is  that  recorded  in 
chapter  xxi.,  where  we  are  told  that  St.  Paul  and  St.  Luke 
entered  into  the  house  of  Phihp  the  evangeUst,  one  of  the 
seven  deacons  whose  appointment  to  office  is  described 
in  chapter  vi.     It  is  also  mentioned  that  Philip  had  four 


VI.] 


THE  LUKAN  SOURCES 


151 


daughters  *  who  did  prophesy.'  With  this  may  be  com- 
pared the  statement  of  Papias  that  these  daughters  of 
PhiHp  '  transmitted  stories  of  the  old  days.'  Harnack 
argues  from  this  that  a  possible  source  for  the  section  of 
the  Gospel  other  than  that  of  St.  Mark  and  that  derived 
from  Q,  is  to  be  found  in  that  which  came  to  the  evangehst 
through  these  daughters  of  PhiUp.  At  present,  however, 
we  need  only  consider  that  here  we  have  a  distinct 
association  in  Caesarea  with  certain  Gospel  stories.  In, 
the  Clementine  HomiHes  and  Recognitions  there  is  also 
an  account  of  a  disputation  between  St.  Peter  and  Simon 
Magus,  and  in  the  course  of  this  description  it  is  said  that 
one  of  the  Christian  converts  of  Caesarea  sent  to  his  friend 
a  work  written  at  St.  Peter's  dictation,  which  had  for  its 
theme  the  Hfe  of  Christ.  During  the  two  years  of  St.  Paul's 
imprisonment  St.  Luke  remained  in  Caesarea,  and  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  was  not  idle  during  those  years.  Yet 
another  Hnk  in  our  chain  of  evidence  may  be  found  in 
connection  with  St.  Peter's  visit  to  Cornelius.  On  that 
occasion  the  apostle  would  be  accompanied  by  his 
interpreter,  and  we  have  the  statement  of  Clement  of 
Alexandria  that  St.  Mark  was  asked  by  those  who  heard 
St.  Peter  preach  to  write  down  what  he  had  said,  and  that 
St.  Mark  did  this,  and  gave  the  writing  to  those  who  had 
made  the  request.  St.  Clement  says  that  this  took  place 
in  Rome,  but  this  may  have  been  due  to  some  confusion  in 
Clement's  mind  between  this  Caesarean  edition  and  the 
later  edition  put  forth  by  St.  Mark  at  Rome.  Some 
uncertainty  of  this  kind  is  indicated  when  Clement  goes 
on  to  say  that  St.  Peter  neither  hindered  nor  encouraged 
St.  Mark  in  this  work,  whereas  Origen  states  that  St. 
Mark  was  guided  by  St.  Peter.  It  has  often  been  pointed 
out  that  St.  Peter's  address  in  the  house  of  CorneUus  is 
practically  an  epitome  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  as  we  have  it, 
and  we  have  only  to  consider  that  this  document  was 
left  by  St.  Mark  at  Caesarea  to  account  for  St.  Luke's 


152  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

coming  into  possession  of  an  edition  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel 
which  bears  evidence  of  having  had  a  Palestinian  origin, 
and  of  having  been  written  earlier  than  that  which  now 
bears  the  name  of  St.  Mark  in  our  canon.  The  references 
which  connect  Caesarea  with  some  sort  of  Gospel  history 
now  become  on  this  supposition  intelHgible,  and  though 
each  by  itself  is  not  sufficient  for  us  to  draw  any  conclusion 
yet  their  cumulative  force  is  considerable.  This  would 
make  the  date  for  the  Markan  source  in  the  third  Gospel 
as  early  as  a.d.  42,  in  which  year  St.  Mark  went  to  Egypt.i 
We  need  not  discuss  here  St.  Luke's  treatment  of  the 
Markan  narrative  which  he  used.  Students  wiU  find  the 
question  admirably  dealt  with  both  in  Dr.  Stanton's 
volume  entitled  The  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  278  ff.,  and  in  Sir  John  Hawkins's  Harae 
Synopticae,  pp.  140  fi.  The  verbal  alterations  are  such 
as  might  be  expected  from  an  editor  whose  Greek  was  less 
Hellenistic  than  that  of  St.  Mark,  and  the  frequent  varia- 
tions when  recording  works  of  heahng  indicate  the  medical 
interest  and  more  scientific  exactness  of  '  the  beloved 
Physician.'  This  latter  feature  is  fully  worked  out  in 
Hobart's  The  Medical  Language  of  St.  Luke,  and  this  again 
is  criticised  and  amplified  by  Harnack  in  his  work  already 
quoted.^  The  insertion  of  additional  matter  and  the  non- 
appearance of  incidents  which  are  found  in  canonical 
Mark  have  already  been  dealt  with  in  deaHng  with  the 
Markan  narrative  (chap.  vi.).  Even  in  the  Hnguistic 
differences  as  between  this  Gospel  and  that  of  St.  Mark, 
it  may  well  be  that  what  appear  to  us  to  be  alterations  in 
word  or  phrase  may  have  been  due  to  variations  between 
the  Markan  edition  which  St.  Luke  used  and  that  which 
is  famihar  to  us  in  the  second  Gospel.  In  referring  to  the 
difference  between  chapters  i.-xii.  and  chapters  xiii.- 
xxviii.  in  the  book  of  the  Acts,  Sir  John  Hawkins  points 
out  that  the  divergence  of  the  language  from  that  of  the 

1  See  chap.  v.  p.  114.  2  j^uke  the  Physician,  pp.  175  ff. 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  163 

Gospel  is  greater  in  the  second  than  in  the  first  part  of 
Acts,  and  this  would  show  that  St.  Luke,  deahng  as  he  did 
with  a  document,  probably  Markan,  in  the  earher  section 
and  writing  as  himself  an  independent  witness  in  the 
second  shows  considerable  respect  to  the  document  before 
him.  He  would,  we  are  assured,  show  the  same  respect  to 
the  document  which  he  used  in  drawing  up  his  Gospel. 
At  the  same  time  that  his  better  style  should  appear  in 
modifications  of  St.  Mark's  language,  and  in  the  intro- 
duction of  phraseology  which  he  owed  to  his  association 
with  St.  Paul,  need  not  occasion  surprise  to  the  student. 
They  certainly  do  not  create  any  difiiculty.  They  are 
human  features  which  are  natural  in  a  work  prepared 
under  such  conditions  as  St.  Luke  has  outHned  for  us  in 
his  introduction  to  the  third  Gospel.  His  abandonment  of 
the  Markan  source  for  another  in  his  account  of  the  post- 
Resurrection  appearances  of  our  Lord  will  be  dealt  with 
in  another  section,  and  it  is  necessary  here  only  to  record 
the  fact. 

We  have  seen  that  St.  Luke  follows  closely  the  Markan 
narrative  which  he  used,  and  that  his  respect  for  his  source 
is  so  great  that  he  even  includes  words  and  phrases  which 
in  his  use  of  editorial  privilege  we  should  have  expected 
him  to  omit  or  to  alter.  This  makes  it  all  the  more  strange 
that  certain  Markan  sections  are  wanting  from  the  third 
Gospel,  and  many  explanations  of  this  have  been  offered. 
Such  omissions  are  to  be  found  in  the  call  of  the  first 
disciples  (Mark  i.  16-20),  the  charge  that  Christ  worked 
miracles  through  collusion  with  Beelzebub  (Mark  iii.  19-30), 
the  fate  of  John  the  Baptist  (Mark  vi.  17-29),  *  the  great 
omission'  (Mark  vi.  45,  viii.  26),  the  treatment  of  offences 
(Mark  ix.  41-50),  the  condemnation  of  the  fig-tree  (Mark 
xi.  11-14  and  19-25),  and  the  anointing  at  Bethany  (Mark 
xiv.  3-9).  This  list  of  passages  is  not  complete,  but  the 
remainder  is  comparatively  insignificant,  and  the  passages 
given  may  be  considered  typical. 


164  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

The  explanations  usually  given  are  as  follows  : 

1.  That    they    were    accidentally    omitted.     Sir    John 

Hawkins  points  out  that  St.  Luke  may  have  been 
misled  into  omitting  '  the  great  omission '  by 
passing  from  the  mention  of  feeding  multitudes 
in  vi.  42  to  that  in  Mark  viii.  19-21  or  from  the 
name  Bethsaida  in  vi.  45,  to  the  same  name  in 
viii.  22. 

2.  That   they   were   deliberately   omitted   because   the 

evangeUst  knew  that  he  had  similar  incidents  or 
teaching  in  his  Logian  or  some  other  source  which 
he  dehberately  preferred.  Dr.  Stanton  suggests 
this  as  explaining  such  omissions  as  that  of  the 
first  call  of  disciples,  the  Beelzebub  controversy, 
the  subject  of  offences,  and  others. 

3.  That  in  the  case  of  '  the  great  omission '  St.  Luke 

omitted  the  passage  because  he  considered  it 
unsuitable  for  his  Gospel.  Sir  John  Hawkins  lays 
especial  emphasis  upon  this  in  connection  with  the 
story  of  the  Syrophenician  woman. 

4.  That  they  were  omitted  by  St.   Luke  in  order  to 

curtail  his  Gospel  which  seemed  hkely  to  be  of 
inordinate  bulk.     Dr.  Sanday  inclines  to  this  view. 

To  differ  from  authorities  who  have  so  fully  estabUshed 
their  position  in  the  world  of  New  Testament  scholarship 
is  fraught  with  peril,  and  I  do  so  with  the  utmost  diffidence. 
If  there  were  no  other  solution  in  sight,  one  or  other  of 
these  might  afford  reUef  to  those  who  would  account  for 
the  characteristics  of  these  Gospels.  But  are  we  really 
shut  up  to  these  ?  Dr.  Sanday  believes  that  features  in 
canonical  Mark  are  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  of 
a  later  recension  of  the  text,  but  what  if  there  were  a  recen- 
sion not  of  the  text  alone,  but  of  the  whole  Gospel,  including 
subject  matter  as  well  as  text,  and  made  by  St.  Mark 
himself  ?    Would  it  not  be  possible  to  account  for  these 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  155 

features  of  the  third  Gospel  as  being  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  did  not  occur  in  the  earUer  edition  of  the  Markan 
narrative  which  St.  Luke  used  ?  Let  us  take  '  the  great 
omission  '  more  in  detail. 

It  contains  what  one  might  consider  to  be  matter 
pecuHarly  attractive  to  St.  Luke.  He  reveals  a  distinct 
sympathy  with  women  which  runs  throughout  the  whole 
of  his  Gospel,  and  as  the  follower  of  St.  Paul  he  must  have 
been  famiHar  with  the  attitude  of  that  Apostle  towards 
the  Gentiles,  of  whom  St.  Luke  himself  was  one,  and  towards 
the  whole  question  of  the  Mosaic  statutes  and  their  relation 
to  the  new  hf e  of  the  Spirit  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  this  passage 
he  would  find  a  story  in  which  a  woman  and  a  Gentile  was 
received  by  Christ,  and  allowed  a  share  in  those  blessings 
which  a  narrow  Pharisaism  would  reserve  for  the  children 
of  Abraham.  That  Christ  even  for  the  purpose  of 
strengthening  the  woman's  faith  treated  her  with  contempt 
by  His  use  of  the  word  '  dog '  we  do  not  beheve.  There 
are  other  methods  of  creating  or  strengthening  faith,  and 
this  particular  method  seems  far  removed  from  that 
which  was  Christ's.  Rather  we  beheve  that  our  Lord, 
sick  at  heart  with  the  bigotry,  the  spiritual  pride,  and  the 
gross  materiahstic  interpretation  of  the  law  made  by 
Pharisees,  seized  the  opportunity  oSered  by  the  approach 
of  this  woman  to  show  to  His  disciples  what  Pharisaic 
teaching  was  Hke  when  reduced  to  the  concrete.  Here 
stood  a  woman  with  the  common  human  need  of  a  mother's 
anxiety  for  her  daughter.  Must  He  treat  her  as  one  of 
the  unclean  ?  To  the  Jew  she  was  but  one  more  '  dog  of  a 
Gentile.'  But  the  woman  was  quick  to  see  the  indignant 
irony  that  went  with  His  words.  She  accepted  the  current 
phrase,  unworthy  as  it  was,  and  yet  claimed  that  even 
such  a  '  dog  '  had  a  share  at  the  banquet  of  heavenly  grace. 
Our  Lord  commended  her  faith  and  honoured  it  by  the 
gift  which  she  sought.  That  St.  Luke  of  all  evangeHsts 
should  choose  this  passage  for  omission  is  to  us  unthink- 


156  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

able.  The  point  of  the  whole  story  was  that  in  spite  of  the 
contempt  felt  by  the  Pharisees,  and  by  Jews  generally,  a 
contempt  well  known  already  to  Gentiles  and  therefore 
less  hkely  to  offend  them  in  this  setting,  Christ  agreed 
with  the  woman  that  the  blessings  of  the  Covenant  were 
for  the  Gentiles  also.  It  would  be  strange  that  St.  Luke 
should  choose  this  passage  so  pecuHarly  *  Pauhne '  for 
omission. 

It  is  possible  to  deal  with  each  one  of  these  so-called 
'  omissions  '  in  the  same  way.  Dr.  Stanton  in  discussing 
the  anointing  at  Bethany,  again  omitted  by  St.  Luke, 
points  out  that  a  better  explanation  is  that  in  this  case 
'  a  reviser  has  inserted  in  the  Markan  Gospel  a  beautiful 
and  touching  story  connected  with  the  events  of  Christ's  Ufe, 
for  which  he  wanted  to  find  a  place.'  With  this  we  would 
agree,  but  make  the  further  point  that  the  '  reviser '  was 
St.  Mark  himself.  And  if  we  are  asked  why  it  was  sup- 
pressed by  St.  Mark  in  his  earher  edition,  we  would  answer 
that  the  family  at  Bethany  seems  to  have  been  in  danger 
of  death,  because  Lazarus  in  himself  was  a  complete 
argument  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Sadducees,  and  the 
story  may  have  been  suppressed  for  that  reason.  But 
in  a  late  edition  pubhshed  in  Rome  the  difficulty  was  not 
felt,  and  the  story  takes  its  place  as  one  of  perfect  beauty 
in  the  record  of  the  Saviour's  Hfe. 

The  contention  of  the  present  work  is  one  which  brings 
relief  to  all  such  questions.  Sir  John  Hawkins  seems  to 
feel  this  when,  in  writing  on  *  the  great  omission,'  he  says  : 
'  It  may  have  been  unavoidable,  because  this  whole  division 
of  Mark  may  not  yet  have  been  inserted  into  that  Gospel 
when  Luke  used  it.  To  use  a  now  well-known  expression, 
it  may  have  belonged  to  "  a  deutero-Mark."  A  good  case 
could  be  made  for  this  account  of  the  matter  if  we  could 
appeal  to  any  appreciable  Hnguistic  difference  between 
this  one-ninth  part  of  our  Mark  and  the  remaining  eight- 
ninths.     But    we    cannot    do    so.     There    is    a    general 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  167 

uniformity  of  style  and  wording  which  is  sufficient  to  show 
that — apart  from  small  additions  and  modifications — it 
was  composed  by  one  author,  or  at  least  was  thoroughly 
worked  over  by  one  editor.'  ^ 

This  is  an  important  concession  by  so  great  an  authority 
on  the  whole  question  as  the  author  of  the  Horae  Synopticae. 
We  would  gladly  accept  it,  and  point  out  that  if  the  case 
can  be  made  out  that  the  author  of  the  deutero-Mark 
was  St.  Mark  himself — that  is,  that  in  the  first  and  second 
Gospels  we  have  later  and  fuller  editions  of  the  Petrine 
Memoirs  prepared  by  St.  Mark — we  secure  at  once  the 
single  authorship  which  leads  to  the  uniformity  of  style 
and  wording  which  Sir  John  Hawkins  quite  rightly  finds 
in  the  record.  The  same  explanation,  we  are  convinced, 
will  account  for  most  if  not  all  of  the  so-called  '  Lukan 
omissions.' 

The  second  of  the  sources  used  by  St.  Luke  consisted  of 
a  collection  of  sayings.  These  are  distributed  by  St.  Luke 
over  the  whole  field  of  his  Gospel  in  accordance  with  his 
method,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  to  give  a  more  or 
less  chronological  setting  to  his  facts  as  recorded.  The 
discussion  of  this  source  is  compHcated  by  the  many  un- 
certainties which  gather  around  the  whole  question  con- 
cerning the  nature  and  contents  of  Q.  In  the  third  chapter 
of  this  work  we  have  asked  : 

1.  Whether    this    formula    should    be    given    to    the 

Matthaean  Logia  as  described  by  Papias,  which 
many  critics  consider  to  be  now  hopelessly  lost. 

2.  Whether  we  are  to  suppose  that  the  term  should  be 

used  for  a  work  containing  mostly  '  sayings,'  but 
also  some  admixture  of  narrative,  and  especially 
an  account  of  the  Passion. 

3.  Whether  it  should  be  given  to  a  collection  of  Logia, 

thrown  together  without  form  or  plan,  containing 

1  Oxford  Studies,  p.  63. 


158  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch 

genuine  and  spurious  sayings  of  Clirist,  and  with 
no  further  connection  between  one  saying  and 
another  than  the  f amihar  introduction  *  Jesus 
said.' 
4.  We  may  also  ask  whether,  supposing  the  formula  Q 
be  used  in  any  one  of  the  above  senses,  St.  Luke 
used  a  '  Q  '  identical  with  that  before  St.  Matthew, 
or  some  other  collection. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  recapitulate  here  the  conclusions 
to  which  we  came  in  chapter  iii.  We  hold  that  the 
Matthaean  Logia  described  by  Papias  are  not  lost,  but 
exist  in  the  first  Gospel,  thus  accounting  for  the  name 
given  to  that  Gospel  from  earhest  times,  though  the  work, 
as  a  whole,  is  a  compilation  drawn  up  by  some  Jewish 
Christian  in  Alexandria.  We  think  that  it  would  save 
great  confusion  in  discussion  if  the  formula  Q  were  not 
used  for  a  work  consisting  partly  of  sayings  and  partly 
of  narrative,  thus  making  what  would  be  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  another  '  Gospel,'  of  which  no  further  trace 
remains.  We  consider  that  the  true  source  of  the  sayings 
is  to  be  found  in  those  somewhat  indiscriminate  collections 
of  sayings,  which  seem  to  have  existed  in  some  number 
in  the  early  Church,  and  that  the  work  of  these  inspired 
evangelists  consisted  in  the  sifting  of  these  sayings — a 
work  in  which  they  were  so  marvellously  guided  that 
they  have  preserved  only  those  sayings  which  belong  to 
the  one  Divine  Teacher  who  '  spake  as  never  man  spake.' 

Last  of  all  we  have  seen  reason  to  suppose  that  while  the 
sayings  that  were  used  by  St.  Luke  came  before  him  in 
documentary  form,  they  belonged  to  a  collection  other 
than  that  used  by  St.  Matthew.  All  that  we  need  add  to 
this  part  of  our  subject  is  to  point  out  that  in  transcribing 
these  sayings  St.  Luke  uses  what  seems  to  some  a  far 
higher  degree  of  verbal  exactness  than  he  does  in  dealing 
with  narrative  (see  Stanton,  op.  cit.  p.  278).     This,  how- 


i 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  169 

ever,  is  better  explained  by  supposing  that  in  Markan 
narrative  St.  Luke  records  with  a  fidehty  equal  to 
that  which  he  shows  to  his  other  sources  the  variations 
which  belong  to  a  writer  giving  to  the  Church  an  earHer 
edition  of  what  he  afterwards  re-wrote  in  a  sHghtly 
different  form.  In  deaUng  with  '  sayings  '  he  would  have 
before  him  matter  which  was  necessarily  more  fixed  in 
expression. 

The  third  Gospel  contains  three  other  sections  in  addition 
to  those  we  have  mentioned.  These  are  the  Nativity 
section  embodied  in  chapters  i.  and  ii.,  the  section  known 
by  the  name  of  '  the  Travel  Document '  consisting  of  the 
matter  contained  in  ix.  61-xviii.  14,  and  the  post- 
Resurrection  appearances  of  our  Lord,  xxiii.  54  -  xxiv.  53. 
An  attempt  will  be  made  in  the  present  work  to  bring  these 
three  w'thin  the  compass  of  a  single  source,  but  waiving 
that  question  for  the  present,  and  confining  attention  to 
the  section  commencing  at  chapter  ix.  51,  we  notice  its 
uniqueness  both  in  contents  and  in  style.  It  describes  a 
portion  of  our  Lord's  ministry  which  is  not  dealt  with  by 
the  other  evangeHsts  in  anything  approaching  the  same 
detail.  It  is  the  sole  authority  for  such  incomparable 
teaching  as  we  derive  from  the  Parables  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,  the  Importunate 
Widow,  and  the  Prodigal  Son.  It  is  true  that  isolated 
sayings  which  appear  in  the  other  Gospels  are  found  in 
these  chapters,  but  that  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  when  we 
recall  the  method  in  which  these  sayings  were  collected 
before  St.  Matthew  made  the  topical  arrangement  of  them 
which  appears  in  the  first  Gospel.  St.  Mark,  too,  would 
incorporate  in  his  narrative  incidents  which  belong  to  this 
part  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  such  as  that  of  Christ's  reception 
of  Httle  children,  or  His  treatment  of  the  rich  young  ruler 
(Mark  xiii.  13-51),  but  such  sections  in  the  second  Gospel 
are  out  of  their  true  chronological  setting,  and  appear 
more  fike  what  we  are  convinced  they  were,  incidents 


160  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

recalled  in  the  course  of  public  preaching,  and  not  parts  of 
a  narrative  given  with  strict  chronological  accuracy.  The 
section  contains- several  parables,  a  considerable  proportion 
of  which  are  pecuHar  to  St.  Luke.  Dr.  Stanton  considers 
that  these  are  to  be  accounted  for  as  additions  made  to  the 
original  Greek  Logian  document  from  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  St.  Luke  drew  a  considerable  part  of  his  matter. 
He  concludes  that  these  additions  were  Jewish-Christian 
in  origin,  there  being  a  distinct  Hebraistic  style  discernible 
throughout,  and  its  birthplace  seems  to  have  been 
Palestine.  He  also  holds  that  it  came  before  the  evangehst 
in  writing,  but  that  certain  passages  gathered  from  oral 
tradition  were  added  by  St.  Luke  himself,  incidents  in 
the  Passion  and  the  post-Resurrection  appearances  of  the 
Lord  being  so  accounted  for.^ 

There  is  much  in  all  this  with  which  we  cordially  agree. 
The  documentary  character  of  the  source,  its  Jewish 
features,  and  its  Palestinian  origin,  seem  to  us  to  be  fully 
estabhshed  by  Dr.  Stanton's  scholarly  analysis  of  details. 
It  does  not  seem  to  us,  however,  that  the  contents  are 
best  accounted  for  by  considering  them  to  be  additions 
made  to  the  Logian  document  supplemented  by  scraps 
of  oral  tradition  put  into  form  by  St.  Luke.  Let  us  begin 
with  the  parables.  These  possess — as  Dr.  Stanton  himself 
points  out — certain  features  as  marked  as  they  are  inter- 
esting. The  parables  that  belong  to  the  Logian  document 
deal  with  characteristics  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Their 
imagery  was  drawn  largely  from  nature  ;  they  illustrate 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  its  growth,  and  its  final  con- 
summation. Their  interpretation  was  to  some  extent  a 
matter  of  difficulty ;  the  clue  to  that  intrepretation  had 
to  be  given  by  the  great  Teacher  before  their  meaning 
became  clear.  They  are  above  all  distinctly  Christological, 
and,  until  the  centrality  of  Christ  and  His  supremacy 
within  the  Kingdom  became  clear,  they  were  to  the  common 
1  Ojp:  cit.  pp.  239-40. 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  161 

people  enigmatic.  But  the  miracles  peculiar  to  St.  Luke 
which  occur  in  this  section  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Kingdom.  To  quote  from  Dr.  Stanton  :  '  They  are  con- 
cerned with  human  emotions  and  motives,  inner  debatings 
and  actions,  which  are  vividly  described  ;  they  are  in  fact 
short  tales  of  human  Hfe.  .  .  .  Once  more  no  subsequent, 
separate  interpretation  could  be  required,  or  asked  for, 
in  the  case  of  these  parables.  They  bear  their  moral 
on  the  face  of  them,  and  in  several  instances  it  is  driven 
home  by  an  emphatic  saying  at  the  conclusion.'  *  That 
parables  should  appear  throughout  the  whole  course  of 
our  Lord's  teaching  is  nothing  more  than  we  should  expect, 
and  that  having  made  clear  to  His  immediate  followers 
the  principles  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  as  He  had  come  to 
establish  it.  He  should  go  on  at  some  later  period  in  His 
ministry  to  deal  with  those  subtleties  of  the  human  heart 
which  are  universal  in  experience  and  need  no  interpreter, 
is  exactly  in  keeping  with  the  development  of  His  teaching. 
This  characteristic  of  the  parables  which  appear  in  this 
section  creates  a  unity  which  covers  the  whole  section,  and 
is  accentuated  by  other  features  which  belong  to  it,  and 
which  will  appear  when  we  have  dealt  with  it  as  a  whole. 
The  passage  is  introduced  by  the  words  '  And  it  came  to 
pass  when  the  days  were  well  nigh  fulfilled  that  He  should 
be  received  up.  He  steadfastly  set  His  face  to  go  to 
Jerusalem.'  Throughout  the  whole  section  Christ  is 
described  as  joume3ring  up  to  Jerusalem.  In  the  former 
part  of  the  Gospel  the  scene  is  entirely  and  consistently 
GaHlean,  but  in  this  section  GaUlee  is  left  behind.  The 
route  is  first  eastwards  to  Perea  and  then  through  that 
country  to  Jerusalem.  For  this  reason  scholars  have 
agreed  to  give  the  section  the  name  of  '  the  Travel  Docu- 
ment,' while  others  prefer  to  describe  it  as  '  the  Perean 
Section.'     Now  this  element  of  movement  from  one  part 

Op.  cit.  p.  231, 


162  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  the  country  to  another  makes  a  second  unity  for  the 
passage.  It  may  be  described  as  '  notes  taken  on  the 
course  of  a  memorable  journey.'  Dr.  Arthur  Wright 
does  not  allow  any  such  unity  as  is  here  assigned  to  this 
section.  He  considers  it  to  be  a  collection  of  undated 
material  made  up  of  '  fragments  which  came  to  St.  Luke, 
as  he  taught  at  PhiHppi,  by  every  ship.*  This  statement 
accords  with  the  requirements  of  an  oral  tradition  as  basis 
for  the  Gospel,  but  it  entirely  fails  to  account  for  out- 
standing features  of  the  section.  For  in  addition  to 
features  already  referred  to  we  find  a  strong  Samaritan 
element  in  this  portion  of  the  third  Gospel.  Nearly  every 
instance  in  which  the  Samaritans  are  mentioned  by  the 
Synoptic  writers  occurs  in  this  section,  nor  are  they 
mentioned  without  indications  of  strong  sympathy. 
This  fact  is  considered  so  significant  that  gome  scholars 
assign  the  section  to  St.  PhiHp.  We  know  that  St.  Luke 
spent  two  years  in  the  house  of  that  evangeUst  in  Caesarea, 
and  we  are  told  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  '  Phihp 
went  down  to  the  city  of  Samaria  and  preached  unto 
them  the  Christ'  (Acts  viii.  5).  It  is  extremely  Hkely 
that  the  chapters  which  describe  the  ministry  of  Philip 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  are  due  to  the  intercourse 
between  these  two  men  in  Caesarea.  The  conjecture  that 
the  section  in  the  Gospel  is  also  to  be  attributed  to  that 
source  is  attractive,  but  considering  that  the  events  de- 
scribed are  not  hmited  to  Samaria,  and  bearing  in  mind 
the  repeated  emphasis  laid  upon  the  fact  of  the  journey 
(see  ix.  56,  x.  1-38,  xiii.  22,  xvii.  11,  xviii.  35,  xix.  11-29), 
it  seems  to  us  more  probable  that  while  the  incidents 
recorded  were  collected  by  one  who  from  sympathy  with 
Samaritans  would  treasure  up  any  reference  to  them  made 
by  our  Lord,  that  one  belonged  to  the  httle  band  of  men 
and  women  who  accompanied  Him  upon  the  memorable 
journey.  To  them  the  incidents  of  that  journey  were 
likely  to  have  been  indeUbly  fixed  upon  the  memory,  and 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  163 

very  early,  we  may  be  sure,  they  were  committed  to  the 
safer  keeping  of  some  written  record. 

There  is  yet  another  feature  of  this  section  which  indeed 
appears  in  other  parts  of  the  third  Gospel  as  well  as  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  this  is  the  intimate  knowledge 
shown  of  incidents  connected  with  the  court  of  Herod 
(see  Luke  iii.  1,  19,  viii.  3,  ix.  7-9,  xiii.  31,  xxiii.  7-12  ; 
Acts  xii.).  In  the  Acts  St.  Luke  seems  to  set  the  authority 
of  his  source  against  that  of  Josephus  from  whose  narrative 
of  Herod's  death  he  differs  considerably.  Last  of  all  there 
is  the  strongly  marked  sympathy  with  women  which  runs 
throughout  the  Gospel.  So  frequent  are  the  indications 
of  a  woman's  interest  that  the  Gospel  is  sometimes  called 
'  The  Woman's  Gospel.'  It  is  most  marked  in  the  section 
which  deals  with  the  Nativity  of  our  Lord,  speaking  of 
which  Sir  WilUam  Ramsay  says  :  '  There  is  a  womanly 
spirit  in  the  whole  narrative  which  seems  inconsistent 
with  the  transmission  from  man  to  man.'  This  feature 
meets  us  again  both  in  the  closing  section  of  the  Gospel 
and  in  this  '  Travel  Document.'  Is  it  possible  to  bring  these 
three  sections  of  the  third  Gospel  within  the  compass  of  a 
single  source  ?  If  we  could  do  so  the  gain  would  be  very 
great,  for  it  is  generally  accepted  as  a  canon  of  criticism 
that  the  multiplication  of  sources  is  to  be  avoided  if 
possible.  Now  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  eighth  chapter 
we  are  told  that  there  accompanied  our  Lord  certain 
women  who  '  ministered  unto  Him  of  their  resources,' 
and  of  these  three  names  are  mentioned, — Mary  Magdalene, 
Susanna,  and  Joanna,  the  wife  of  Chuza,  Herod's  steward. 
At  the  close  of  the  twenty-third  chapter  we  are  told  that 
their  ministry  continued  after  their  Master  had  been 
crucified,  and  that  they  proceeded  to  prepare  the  spices 
which  would  be  required  for  embalming  His  body.  Of  these 
women  we  are  told  that  they  had  come  with  Jesus  out  of 
Galilee,  and  it  is  easy  to  infer  that  they  would  be  likely  to 
treasure  up  the  precious  teaching  of  their  Master  whom 


164  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

they  served  with  such  devotion.  Of  the  three  names 
that  of  Joanna  attracts  attention.  Her  name  does  not 
appear  in  the  other  Synoptic  Gospels.  St.  Luke  is  the  one 
evangehst  who  has  rescued  her  name  from  oblivion.  Only 
to  him  has  she  seemed  to  be  of  interest,  as  indeed  she  would 
be  if  through  her  devotion  to  Christ  he  had  been  put  in 
possession  of  these  priceless  records.  In  the  first  chapter 
of  the  Acts  her  name  does  not  appear,  but  we  are  told 
that  the  disciples  continued  in  prayer  '  with  the  women, 
and  Mary  the  Mother  of  Jesus.'  The  reference  can  only  be 
to  some  well-known  band  of  women  who  were  now  joined 
by  the  Mother  of  our  Lord,  and  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  they  were  those  who  had  been  the  companions 
of  Jesus  during  the  latter  part  of  His  ministry.  Harnack 
recognises  the  necessity  of  finding  some  womanly  element 
among  the  authorities  consulted  by  St.  Luke,  but  thinks 
that  this  may  be  supplied  by  the  daughters  of  Philip. 
These,  however,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  associated 
with  our  Lord  during  His  ministry,  nor  do  they  supply 
what  we  need  to  account  for  the  knowledge  of  Herod's 
court  which  belongs  to  this  source.  No  better  authority 
for  this  could  be  found  than  what  is  given  us  in  the  wife 
of  his  steward  Chuza. 

Dr.  Bartlet  contributes  to  the  Oxford  Studies  in  the 
Synoptic  Problem  a  paper  on  the  sources  of  St.  Luke's 
Gospel  in  which  he  allows  that  the  features  of  '  the  great 
insertion '  which  Dr.  Stanton  has  discussed,  and  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made  in  this  work,  are  fairly 
estabhshed,  especially  the  Hebraistic  stjde  prominent  in 
the  Nativity  section,  but  appearing  also  in  *  the  Travel 
Document,'  and  the  Resurrection  story.  The  agreement 
of  these  two  authorities  on  the  unity  underlying  these 
different  sections  goes  far  to  support  the  claim  of  a  common 
authorship  for  them  all.  Dr.  Bartlet  also  agrees  with 
Dr.  Stanton  in  reducing  the  Lukan  sources  to  two,  ascribing 
these  three  sections  together  with  the  Logia  to  a  source 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  166 

which  he  calls  *  S  '  and  which  was  unified  in  tradition  with 
Q.  The  difference  between  Dr.  Stanton  and  Dr.  Bartlet 
is  found  in  this,  that  the  latter  '  sees  no  evidence  that  Q 
was  ever  written  down  before  it  was  so  in  Luke's  S.'  Taking 
Q  to  represent  '  the  original  apostolic  tradition '  he  con- 
ceives it  to  have  come  before  St.  Luke  in  the  form  of  oral 
tradition.  Dr.  Stanton,  however,  considers  that  it  came 
to  him  in  documentary  form.  But  whether  this  particular 
source  was  oral  or  documentary — and  it  seems  to  us  that 
the  latter  is  the  more  Hkely,  as  Dr.  Stanton  shows — it 
is  clear  that  the  question  of  the  nature  and  contents  of 
Q,  perhaps  the  most  vexed  question  of  all  that  concern 
the  Synoptic  Problem,  must  first  be  settled  before  we  can 
arrive  at  any  general  agreement  as  to  the  relation  of  this 
section  of  the  third  Gospel  to  Q.  Dr.  Bartlet  considers 
that  Q  included  the  Passion  story,  a  theory  already  dis- 
cussed.^ There  is  also  something  too  formal  about  the 
theory  of  '  an  original  apostolic  tradition '  existing  at  the 
time  when  this  matter  came  before  St.  Luke.  It  contains 
an  element  of  Canonicity  which  belongs  to  the  second 
century  rather  than  the  first,  and  to  us  it  seems  probable 
that  the  origins  of  the  Gospel  were  very  much  more  simple 
than  an  apostoHc  tradition  would  indicate.  The  out- 
standing feature  of  the  different  parts  of  the  Gospels  is 
individual  rather  than  collective,  and  this  is  true  whether 
we  consider  the  Markan  narrative,  the  Matthaean  sajdngs, 
or  '  the  great  insertion '  of  St.  Luke.  The  homogeneity 
of  this  section  is  another  argument  against  the  idea  that 
all  this  matter  came  to  St.  Luke  in  the  form  of  oral  tradition. 
Such  a  tradition  would  come  along  many  Hues,  and  be 
Ukely  to  reveal  many  tendencies,  whereas  this  section 
reveals  in  the  character  of  the  parabolic  teaching  and  of 
the  Samaritan  interest  an  individual  point  of  view  which 
does  not  go  with  an  apostolic  tradition  in  oral  form.  Nor 
is  it  an  answer  that  such  a  point  of  view  would  be  conferred 

1  See  p.  42. 


166  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

by  St.  Luke  the  redactor.  The  Hebraistic  feature  of  the 
writing  makes  that  the  most  unMkely  solution  of  all. 
To  account  for  all  the  characteristics  of  this  section  we 
need  a  Jewish  Christian  of  Palestine,  a  companion  of 
Christ  during  His  journey  from  Gahlee  to  Jerusalem,  one 
who  had  to  do  with  Samaritans  and  also  had  knowledge 
from  within  of  Herod's  court.  AU  these  elements  are 
supphed  by  Joanna,  the  wife  of  Herod's  steward,  whose 
name  appears  with  such  marked  emphasis  in  this  Gospel. 

There  remain  for  our  consideration  two  sections  of  this 
Gospel.  The  two  chapters  which  make  up  what  is  called 
'  the  Nativity  Section '  and  the  chapter  with  which  St. 
Luke  closes  his  record  are  unique  in  the  Gospel  story. 
They  belong  neither  to  Markan  narrative  nor  to  Q  nor  any 
other  collection  of  sayings.  We  hold  that  there  is  good 
reason  for  supposing  that  they  reveal  a  common  authorship. 
For  not  only  does  St.  Luke  here  depart  from  the  Markan 
narrative,  but  all  three  chapters  belong  to  a  Judaean 
tradition  rather  than  to  a  Gahlean.  To  the  author  the 
infancy  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  the  circumstances  attend- 
ing his  birth,  were  matters  of  great  interest,  and  a  necessary 
introduction  to  the  account  of  the  birth  of  the  Messiah. 
The  references  to  Anna  and  Simeon  and  to  Christ's  inter- 
view with  the  doctors  in  the  temple  are  parts  of  a  tradition 
which  grew  up  around  Jerusalem  rather  than  around 
some  centre  in  Gahlee.  So  in  the  last  chapter  Jerusalem 
is  spoken  of  as  *  the  city,*  and  the  reference  to  the  temple 
in  verse  53  is  significant.  The  Hnguistic  characteristics 
of  the  one  section  appear  also  in  the  other ;  both  are 
distinctly  Hebraistic,  and  expressions  are  found  in  both 
which  are  not  found  in  other  parts  of  the  third  Gospel.^ 
That  there  should  have  been  a  Judaean  tradition  as  well 
as  that  more  distinctly  Gahlean  tradition  which  St.  Mark 
has  handed  down  to  us  will  scarcely  be  denied  by  any  one. 
That  a  Church  which  originated  and  grew  up  in  the  Holy 

1  See  additional  notes,  pp.  173  flF. 


J 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  167 

City  should  have  remained  content  with  a  record  wholly 
concerned  with  the  ministry  of  our  Lord  in  Gahlee  can 
scarcely  be  believed,  and  that  St.  Luke  should  turn  to  the 
record  of  that  tradition  to  set  forth  the  circumstances 
attending  both  the  birth  of  Jesus  and  His  Ascension  is 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  the  recognition 
of  his  departure  from  the  Markan  narrative  in  recording 
the  post-Resurrection  appearances  of  Christ  which  offers 
the  best  solution  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  this  part 
of  the  Gospel  narrative.  The  Markan  account  is  preserved 
for  us  in  the  first  Gospel,  for  the  mutilation  of  the  last 
chapter  in  canonical  Mark  makes  anything  hke  a  close 
comparison  of  the  two  impossible.  That  account  follows 
the  general  plan  of  the  Markan  narrative.  Its  scene  is 
entirely  Galilean,  but  when  we  see  that  St.  Luke  prefers 
in  this  instance  to  give  those  appearances  of  the  risen 
Lord  which  occurred  in  and  about  Jerusalem,  we  account 
at  once  for  the  differences  which  undoubtedly  exist  between 
the  one  account  and  the  other. 

Returning  to  the  Nativity  section,  we  notice  that, 
whether  St.  Luke  modified  it  in  part  or  not,  the  original 
story  has  a  source  which  is  distinctly  feminine.  The 
story  differs  from  that  in  the  first  Gospel  exactly  as  Mary's 
story  would  differ  from  that  of  Joseph.  The  mother  of 
our  Lord  would  naturally  refrain  from  speaking  of  that 
which  was  known  only  to  her  husband  and  herself.  She 
*  hid  all  these  things  in  her  heart.'  But  after  the  resur- 
rection she  would  as  naturally  feel  that  she  was  bound  to 
impart  that  story  to  those  who  Hke  herself  would  after 
that  event  know  that  the  Jesus  whose  earthly  fife  they 
had  in  large  measure  shared  was  indeed  the  very  Messiah. 
Yet  the  modesty  and  reserve  which  had  kept  her  silent 
in  this  matter  would  cause  her  to  impart  her  great  secret 
only  to  the  women  who  were  with  her  in  the  upper  room 
while  they  waited  for  the  coming  of  the  promised 
Comforter.    Among  these,  as  we  have  seen,  was  Joanna, 


168  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

and  if  the  wife  of  Herod's  steward  may  be  supposed  to 
have  been  better  educated  than  the  majority  of  Jewish 
women,  she  would  be  most  Ukely  to  put  on  record  what  she 
had  received,  and  to  add  her  own  contribution  to  the 
story.  In  his  admirable  work  entitled  Luke  the  Physician, 
Harnack  says  :  '  A  Greek  source  cannot  He  at  the  founda- 
tion of  chapters  i.  and  ii.  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel ;  the  corre- 
spondence between  their  style  and  that  of  Luke  is  too 
great ;  it  would  have  been  necessary  that  the  source 
should  have  been  re-written  sentence  by  sentence.  It  is 
possible,  but  not  probable,  that  for  the  narrative  part  an 
Aramaic  source  was  translated.  The  Magnificat  and  the 
Benedictus  at  all  events  are  St.  Luke's  composition.'  It 
is  difficult  to  go  SQ  far  as  Harnack  does  in  ascribing  even 
parts  of  this  essentially  Jewish  composition  to  a  Gentile 
hke  St.  Luke.  The  Lukan  style  is  not  admitted  by  Dr. 
Stanton,  whose  paragraph  on  this  point  should  be  carefully 
read.  He  says,*  '  While  then  it  may  be  allowed  that  the 
third  evangeHst  might  himself  have  written  the  hymns  in 
Luke  i.  and  ii.,  it  does  not  appear  that  their  style  is  un- 
questionably distinctive  of  him.  And  in  the  character  of 
their  Messianic  expectation  there  is  strong  reason  for 
thinking  that  they  cannot  be  his.  It  would  have  been 
difficult  even  for  a  Jewish  Christian,  and  wellnigh  impos- 
sible for  a  Gentile,  such  as  the  author  of  the  Lukan  writings 
probably  was,  and  indeed  must  have  been  if  he  was  Luke 
the  companion  of  St.  Paul,  to  have  placed  himself  at,  and 
adhered  so  consistently  to,  a  point  of  view  which  preceded 
the  Passion  and  the  Resurrection.'  To  the  present  writer 
it  seems  even  less  likely  than  apparently  it  does  to  Dr. 
Stanton  that  the  hymns  can  have  been  written  by  St. 
Luke.  The  whole  section  is  without  seam  or  division, 
and  the  hymns  in  particular  are  the  product  of  a  mind 
steeped  in  the  imagery  of  Hebrew  poetry.     Least  of  all 

1  Op.  cit.  p.  225.    For  a  three-document  hypothesis  see  Expos.  Times,  xL 
473  and  xi.  112. 


VL]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  169 

do  the  chapters  suggest  fragments  of  oral  tradition.  One 
mind  conceived  the  exquisite  portrayal,  and  if  that  mind 
was  that  of  a  woman  then  it  seems  most  Hkely  that  we 
must  seek  for  her  among  those  women  who  were 
associated  with  our  Lord  in  the  course  of  His  ministry 
and  afterwards  with  His  mother. 

In  deaHng  with  the  common  characteristics  of  the 
matter  pecuHar  to  St.  Luke  we  have  anticipated  what 
should  be  said  of  the  last  section  of  this  Gospel  in  which 
St.  Luke  gives  his  account  of  the  post- Resurrection  appear- 
ance of  our  Lord.  Dr.  Stanton  holds  that  the  accounts 
of  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  Passion  and  appearance 
of  the  Risen  Christ  owe  their  written  form  to  St.  Luke, 
who  gathered  them  probably  from  oral  tradition.  There 
is,  however,  nothing  in  the  passage  which  would  bear  out 
this  assumption,  and  against  it  we  would  place  the 
Hebraistic  style  which  appears  in  chapter  xxiv.  as  it  appears 
in  the  Nativity  section.  It  is  possible  that  there  is  but 
one  source  for  the  two  sections,  and  the  way  in  which 
Joanna's  name  is  introduced  is  significant.  It  appears  in 
xxiv.  10,  and  many  critics  point  out  that  the  verse  reads 
somewhat  hke  an  interpolation.  We  hold  that  if  so  it  was 
an  interpolation  made  by  the  evangelist  himself,  and  what 
could  be  more  natural  than  that  he  should  thus  record  the 
name  of  the  woman  to  whom  he  owed  this  special  contri- 
bution to  the  Gospel  story. 

To  sum  up  this  discussion  of  the  Lukan  sources  we  hold 
that  they  were  three  in  number.  The  first  consists  of  an 
account  of  Christ's  ministry  in  Gahlee  derived  from  St. 
Mark,  but  not  from  the  second  Gospel  as  we  have  it  in  the 
Christian  Canon.  The  narrative  used  by  St.  Luke  for  this 
part  of  his  Gospel  was  earlier  than  that  which  appears 
either  in  the  first  or  in  the  second  Gospel.  Its  birthplace 
was  Palestine,  and  if  we  must  define  still  closer  we  would 
place  it  in  Caesarea.  We  would  account  thus  for  the 
fuller  reference  in  this  Gospel    to  the  ministry  of   the 


170  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Baptist  and  to  the  Baptism  and  Temptation  of  our  Lord, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  theory  offers  a  simple  but 
sufficient  explanation  for  the  non-appearance  of  sections 
which  are  to  be  found  in  later  and  fuller  editions  of  the 
Markan  narrative.  This  does  not  preclude  St.  Luke's 
use  of  editorial  privilege.  He  would  modify  the  style 
where  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  defective,  and  impress  his 
own  personaUty  upon  the  record  by  emplojdng  medical 
terms  where  it  seemed  to  him  better, to  do  so.  He  would 
also  supply  such  chronological  connections  as  seemed  to 
be  desirable  to  one  who  wished  to  set  forth  the  sajdngs 
and  doings  of  Jesus  '  in  order,'  and  he  would  distribute 
his  material  whether  derived  from  this  or  from  other 
sources  so  as  to  secure  this  object. 

His  second  source  was  undoubtedly  a  collection  of  the 
sajdngs  of  our  Lord.  As  coming  from  the  same  great 
Teacher  these  would  bear  a  great  amount  of  similarity  to 
those  which  appear  in  the  first  Gospel,  but  there  seems 
good  reason  to  beheve  that  the  collection  used  by  this 
evangeHst  differed  considerably  from  those  employed  by 
St.  Matthew  when  he  made  his  notable  compilation  of 
the  same  Teacher's  words.  Whether  the  collection  before 
St.  Luke  was  earUer  or  later  than  that  before  St.  Matthew 
it  is  useless  to  enquire.  It  may  well  be  that  '  forasmuch 
as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narrative  con- 
cerning those  matters '  more  than  one  collection  was 
extant,  and  the  two  collections  may  well  have  existed 
side  by  side. 

The  third  source  we  consider  to  have  been  a  document 
containing  at  least  the  section  on  the  Nativity,  the  account 
of  Christ's  journey  from  GaUlee  to  Jerusalem  with  His 
teaching  on  the  way,  and  details  of  the  Passion  and 
Resurrection.  We  hold  that  there  is  good  reason  drawn 
entirely  from  internal  evidence  that  this  was  the  work  of 
Joanna.^  Her  relation  through  her  husband  both  to 
1  I  arrived  at  this  conclusion  by  independent  study,  but  it  has  been 


VI.]  THE  LUKAN  SOURCES  171 

Herod  and  to  the  Samaritans,  her  Jewish  birth  and 
education,  and  her  association  with  the  mother  of  our 
Lord,  and  her  strong  womanly  sympathy  all  combine  to 
make  the  introduction  of  her  name  by  St.  Luke  significant. 


EXCURSUS  I 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE  THIRD  GOSPEL 

Chap.  i.  1-4.  Inteoduction.     Editorial. 

Chaps,  i.  ii.  The  birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus.     Special  source, 
iii.  1-2.  Editorial  addition. 

3-22.  Ministry  of  John  the  Baptist.     Baptism  of  Jesus. 

Markan  source. 
23-38.  Genealogy  of  Jesus.     Special  source, 
iv.  1-13.  The  temptation.     Markan  source. 

14-30.  The  preaching  of  Jesus  at  Nazareth.     Special 

source. 
31-44.  Works  of  healing.     Markan  source. 
V.  1-39.  Jesus  calls  His  Disciples,  cures  a  leper  and   a 
paralytic,  and  is  entertained  by  Matthew.     Markan 
source. 
TL  1-16.  Controversy  with  the  Pharisees  on  the  question 
of  the  Sabbath.     Jesus  withdraws  to  a  mountain. 
Markan  source. 
17-49.  Jesus  addresses  His  Disciples.    Logian  document, 
vii.  1-10.  Cure  of  the  Centurion's  servant.    Markan  source. 
11-17.  Jesus  raises   the  son  of  the  widow   at   Nain. 

Special  source. 
18-35.  Testimony  concerning    the   Baptist.      Markan 

source. 
29-30.  Special  source. 
vii.  36-viii.  3.  The  woman  that  was  a  sinner  at  Simon  the 
Pharisee's  house.     Special  source. 

pointed  out  to  me  by  my  friend,  Dr.  J.  H,  Moulton,  that  I  have  been 
anticipated  by  Dr.  Sanday.  See  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art. 
'  Jesus  Christ,'  p.  639.  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  delighted  to  find  myself  in 
agreement  with  so  great  a  scholar. 


172  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

viii.  4-21.  Parables  and  Discourses.     Logian  document. 
22-56.  Mighty  works.     Markan  source. 
ix.  1-17.  Mission  of  the  Twelve,  and  death  of  the  Baptist. 
Markan  source. 
18-27.  Confession  of  Peter;   announcement  of  Passion. 

Markan  source. 
28-45.  The  Transfiguration,  and  cure  of  demoniac  boy. 

Markan  source. 
46-50.  Questions    as    to    greatness,    and    toleration. 

Markan  source. 
51-xviii.  14.  The  journey  from  Perea.     Special  source, 
xviii.  15-30.  Little    children,    and    the    rich   young    ruler. 
Markan  source. 
30-43.  Announcement  of  Passion.    Healing  of  the  blind. 
Markan  source. 
xix.  1-27.  Zacchaeus,    and    the    parable    of    the    Pounds. 
Special  source. 
28-48.  Triumphal  entry,  and  cleansing  of  the  Temple. 
Markan  source. 
XX.  1-47.  Controversy  with  Pharisees  and  others.     Markan 

source, 
xxi.  1-4.  The  Widow's  Mite.     Markan  source. 

5-38.  Eschatological  teaching.     Markan  source, 
xxii.  1-38.  The  plot  against  Jesus.      The  Paschal  Supper. 
Markan  source. 
38-71.  The  agony  of  Jesus.     His  betrayal.     Markan 
source, 
xxiii.  1-5.  The  trial  of  Jesus.     Markan  source. 

6-19.  Jesus,  Herod,  and  Pilate.     Special  source. 
20-26.  Jesus  delivered  to  be  crucified.    Markan  source. 
27-31.  The  weeping  daughters  of  Jerusalem.     Special 

source. 
32-56.  The  Crucifixion  of  Jesus.     Markan  source, 
xxiv.   1-53.  The  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  His  appearance  to  His 
disciples,   and  Ascension   into   Heaven.      Special 
sourcQ. 


VL]  EXCURSUS  173 


EXCURSUS  n 

The  'special  sotjrcb'  op  the  third  Gospel: 
Analysis  with  notes. 

The  special  source  is  indicated  in  the  following  passages: — 

Chaps,  i.  and  ii. 
iv.  U-30. 
vii.  11-17,  29-30. 
Tii.  36-viii.  3. 
ix.  51.-xviii.  14, 
xix.  1-27. 
xxiii.  6-19,  27-56. 
xxiv. 

Chap.  i.  1-4.  Editorial  Introduction.     See  p.  148. 

5-35.  On  the  general  question  of  Semitisms  in  Synoptic 
Gospels,  see  Dalman,  The  Words  of  Jesus,  pp.  17  ff. 
*  Genuine  Hebraisms '  are  almost  exclusively 
peculiarities  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel. 
1.  The  section  begins  with  a  reference  to  Herod. 
See  p.  163.  The  use  of  the  introductory  kykv^ro  is 
characteristic  of  the  source.  It  is  sometimes  used 
absolutely  as  here  and  also  in  i.  8,  23,  59  ;  ii.  1,  6, 
15,  46;  vii.  11 ;  viii.  1 ;  ix.  18,  28,  37,  51.  Often 
with  €1/  Tw  followed  by  an  Infinitive.  The  phrase  is 
found  in  each  of  the  five  formulae  used  by  the 
editor  of  the  first  Gospel  in  passing  from  the  Logia 
to  the  Markan  source  and  in  one  other  place.  It  is 
used  four  times  in  Mark,  not  at  all  in  John,  and  forty- 
two  times  in  Luke.  See  Plummer's  Comm.  on  this 
Gospel,  p.  45. 

Chap.  i.  5.  €K  Tiov  6vyaT€po)v  'Aapwv  (cf.  xiii.  16  and  xix.  9). 

6.  €vavTiov  Tov  deov.     This  use,  with  that  of  €y<j)Triov, 

is  common  in  the  LXX.     For  its  use  in  this  source 

see  i.   6,   xxiv.   19.     c^wttiov  appears  in  v.  15  of 

this  chapter    and  in  twenty-three  other  passages 


174  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

in  this  Gospel.  In  does  not  appear  in  Matthew  or 
in  Mark,  and  only  once  in  John.  (See  Dalman, 
op.  cit.  p.  31.)  Of  the  Lukan  passages  all  but  four 
are  in  sections  taken  from  the  special  source. 
tropevofievoi,  common  in  LXX,  Psalm  cxix.  1.  In 
this  Gospel  see  ix.  53,  xiiv.  13. 
8.  ev  T(^  with  Infinitive.  Once  in  Matt,  and  Mark, 
not  at  all  in  John,  but  twenty-five  times  in  Luke. 
See  ix.  36,  51;  xi.  1;  xxiv.  4,  15.  k.t.A.  See 
Dalman,  op.  cit.  p.  33. 
i  19.  evayycAi^eor^ai.  Used  as  in  the  Old  Testament 
for  announcing  good  tidings. 

20.  IBov.  Hebraistic.  The  word  appears  fifty-five  times 
in  this  Gospel,  lo-y  o-twTrwi/.  For  the  use  of  efvai, 
with  the  participle,  see  Dalman,  p.  35,  and  Moulton, 
Prolegomena^  p.  226. 

30.  xdpiv  ivp€s  is  Hebraic  (cf.  ii.  40,  52,  xvii.  7). 
The  word  x^P'^  does  not  appear  in  the  first  two 
Gospels.  In  the  *  we '  sections  of  Acts  it  is  used 
in  the  Pauline  sense. 

39-56.  The  meeting  of  Mary  and  Elizabeth. 
43.  tva.    See  p.  184,  and  Stanton,  Gospels  as  Historical 
Documents,  ii.  p.  312. 

50.  €ts  y€V€as  Ktti  yevids,  cf.  els  yevcav  koi  ycv€av. 
Psalm  Ixxxix.  2. 

51.  €rrotr](T€v  k/xxtos  and  €v  (ipa\iovi  are  both  Hebra- 
isms. See  Plummer  in  loco,  vrrepricfydvovs  Siavoi^. 
Frequent  in  LXX. 

64.  jxi'rja-Orjvai  lAe'ovs.     Cf.  Psalms  XXV.  6  and  xcviii.  3. 
57-79.  Birth  of  John  and  song  of  Zecharias. 
58.  €/AeyaA,fi/€v  cAeos  (cf.  Genesis  xix.  19). 

68.  T$  Aaw  (cf.  vii.  16,  xxiv.  19).  kTrea-Kkxj/aTO.  'Used 
in  the  Hebrew  sense  of  Divine  visitation  by  St.  Luke 
alone.'     See  Plummer  in  loco. 

69.  K6/3as  (roiTY}pLa<s.  A  common  Old  Testament 
metaphor  (cf.  Psalm  xviii.  3). 

70.  air'  aluivos.  Peculiar  to  St.  Luke  (cf.  Acts  iii.  21, 
XV.  18. 

76.  Trpo  7rpocr(oirov.  A  Hebraistic  construction. 
Dalman,  p.  29. 


VL]  EXCURSUS  175 

i.  78-79.  The    genitives    of    characterising    quality   are 
Hebraistic. 

Chap.  ii.  1-5.  (Editorial  Introduction.) 
6-20.   The  birth  of  Jesus. 

8.  ^vXacro-ovres  ^vAaKcts.  This  Hebraistic  form  of 
expression  occurs  throughout  this  source  (cf .  Mark 
V.  9,  and  Luke  vii.  29,  xii.  50,  xvii.  24,  xxii.  15, 
and  xxiii.  46).     See  Dalman,  p.  34. 

9.  iireaTr).  A  Lukan  word  used  of  supernatural 
appearances  (cf.  ii.  38,  and  xxiii.  11). 

10.  T<5)  Aa(^.     So  also  in  i.  68,  and  vii.  16. 

11.  (V  770 Aet  Aav€i8.     Hebraistic. 

15.  i8(i>ix€v  TO  prjfxa.     Hebraistic. 

19.  o-vi/^aAAovo-a.  Peculiar  to  St.  Luke.  SeePlummer 
on  i.  66. 

21-40.  The  Circumcision  of  Jesus  and  His  Presentation 

in  the  Temple. 
22.  at  'qfxepac   tov   KaOapicr/xov.     A  Hebraism  which 

appears  again  in  iv.  16,  xiii.  14,  16,  xiv.  5,  xxii.  7. 

25.  TTpocrSexofJi-evos.  This  verb  occurs  again  in  v.  38, 
and  in  xxiii.  51.     See  Dalman,  p.  109. 

26.  6  X/oio-Tos  Kvpiov.  A  similar  phrase  occurs  no  less 
than  nine  times  in  chapters  i.  and  ii. 

38.  €v  avry  T'Q  ilipc^..  A  Lukan  expression  which  occurs 
in  X.  21,  xi.  12,  xiii.  31,  xx.  19,  and  xxiv.  33. 

48.  68vvu)ix€voL.  Three  times  in  Luke  but  not  else- 
where in  the  Gospels  (cf.  xvi.  24,  25). 

49.  rjkLKta  for  '  stature.'     So  again  in  xix.  3. 

Chap.  iv.  14-30.  The  Discourse  at  Nazareth. 

16.  cvrr;  ijjwe/o^  twi/  a-aftfBaroiv.  This  phrase  does  not 
occur  in  the  other  Gospels.  In  the  third  Gospel  it 
occurs  here,  and  also  in  xiii.  14,  16,  and  xiv.  5. 

20.  rja-av  arevi^ovres  (cf.  i.  20,  xiii.  10,  xiv.  10,  xv.  1). 

21.  rip^aro  Xkyav.  Hebraistic.  See  Dalman,  p.  27, 
and  cf.  vii.  38,  49,  xi.  29,  53,  xii.  1,  xv.  25, 
xxiii.  30. 

27.  iv  Tw  'lo-pttTJA.  A  distinctly  Jewish  use  (cf.  i.  16, 
54,  68,  80,  ii.  25,  32,  34,  vii.  9,  xxii.  30,  xxiv.  21). 


176  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch- 

Chap.  vii.  11-17.  Jesus  raises  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Nain. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  section,  peculiar  to  the 
third  Gospel,  contains  in  the  space  of  half  a  dozen 
verses  characteristics  which  distinctly  connect  it 
with  chapters  i.  and  ii.  We  assign  it  without 
hesitation  to  the  same  source. 

11.  kykvero.     See  note  on  i.  5. 

12.  Ka6  tSov  e^€Ko/x,i{'€To.     See  note  on  i.  20. 

13.  o  Kvpios.  This  title  of  Christ  does  not  appear  in 
the  other  Synoptic  Gospels.  In  Luke  it  is  used 
here,  and  also  in  x.  1,  39,  xi.  39,  xvii.  5,  6,  xviii.  6, 
xxiv.  34 ;  all  passages  are  from  the  special  source. 

16.  Tov  Xaov  (cf.  i.  68  and  xxiv.  19). 

17.  'lovSaia.  Used  in  Matthew  and  Mark  for  the 
province  of  Judaea,  but  used  here,  and  also  in  i.  5, 
vi.  17,  xxiii.  5,  xxiv.  19,  for  Palestine. 

29-30.  These  two  verses  also  seem  to  be  taken  from 
St.  Luke's  special  source.  The  following  expres- 
sions should  be  noted. 

39.  6  Aaos.  See  16  above  and  i.  68  and  xxiv.  19, 
cSiKaiWav  (cf.  Psalm  Ixxii.  13,  Ezekiel  xvi.  51, 
Jeremiah  iii.  11,  cf.  x.  39,  and  xviii.  14.  paimcr- 
6kvTe<5  TO  /JaTTTtcr/xa.  See  note  on  ii.  8,  and  cf. 
xxii.  15. 

30.  vofXLKol.  In  Matthew  and  Mark  the  word 
generally  used  is  ypafx/xareUy  but  vo/x«kos  appears 
here  and  also  in  x.  25,  xi.  45,  46,  52,  63,  xiv.  3. 

36.  KaTiKXiOrj.  The  middle  voice  is  used  here  and  in 
xiv.  8  and  xxiv.  30,  but  nowhere  else  in  the  New 
Testament.  Note  that  in  the  Markan  passage, 
ix.  14,  the  active  voice  is  used. 

36-viii.  3.  Simon  the  Pharisee  and  (he  woman  that 
was  a  sinner.  This  section  is  peculiar  to  the  third 
Gospel.  Christ's  vindication  of  the  woman's  action 
is  to  be  noticed  (see  p.  163),  and  the  section  is 
followed  by  a  reference  to  the  women  who  followed 
our  Lord  from  Galilee.  Among  the  names  that  of 
Joanna  appears  for  the  first  time.     See  pp.  163  ff. 

36.  KaraKkivea-Oai.  See  note  on  V.  36  of  this 
chapter. 


VL]  EXCURSUS  177 

vii.  38.  rip^aro  ppkx^iv.     See  note  on  iv.  21. 

41.  XP^^^^^^^'^V^'  This  word  appears  only  here  and 
in  xvi.  5  in  the  New  Testament.  The  second 
passage  as  well  as  this  belongs  to  the  special  source. 

49.  rropivov  cts  eipT^vrjv.  '  A  Hebrew  formula  of  peace 
and  goodwill  with  special  fulness  of  meaning.' 
Dr.  Stanton  speaks  of  this  section  as  being  derived 
from  oral  tradition  by  St.  Luke.  But  such 
linguistic  peculiarities  as  it  possesses  show  a 
connection  with  other  portions  of  this  Gospel,  and 
it  is  better  to  assign  it  with  them  to  St.  Luke's 
special  source. 

Chap.  ix.  51-56.  Inhospitable  Samaritans.      St.  Luke's  'great 
insertion'  (see  p.  161)  begins  at  this  point.     Note 
the  introductory  words  which  indicate  a  journey 
and  the  Samaritan  reference  (see  p.  162). 
51.  cycV€To.     See  note  on  i.  5. 

51.  Trpoarwrrov  icrTrjpurev.  A  Hebraism.  Plummer 
compares  Jeremiah  xxi.  10,  Ezekiel  vi.  2,  etc. 

52.  TT/Do  TTpoa-wTTov.  A  Hebraism,  which  occurs  again 
in  vii.  27  and  x.  1.     See  Dalman,  p.  29. 

57-62.  Conditions  of  discipleship.  For  the  relation 
of  this  section  to  the  parallel  in  Matthew,  see 
Plummer. 

61.  a-KOTa^aa-dai,  See  also  xiv.  33.  cv^cTos.  Used 
again  xiv.  35.     Dalman,  p.  119. 

Chap.  X.   1-16.   The  Mission  of  the  Seventy. 

6.  vtos  €lp-qvr)s.  A  Hebraism  to  denote  *  one  closely 
identified  with'  (cf.  'The  sons  of  the  prophets' 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  such  phrases  as  reKva 
arocfiiaSf  vii.  35,  and  vlbs  rrj^  aTrwAcias,  John  xvii.  12), 

17-20.  The  Return  of  the  Seventy. 

21-24.  The  Mysteries  of  the  Kingdom. 

21.  •qyaXXiaa-aro.  The  only  other  passage  in  which 
this  word  occurs  in  Luke  is  i.  47.  The  author 
uses  xaipiti  quite  frequently.  ^vBoKla  kykv^ro 
tinrpoo-dkv  aov.     A  distinct  Hebraism. 

25-37.   The  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan, 

25.  vo/^iKos.     See  note  on  vii.  40. 


178  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

X.  29.  SiKaiovv  eavTov.     See  note  on  vii.  35. 

33.  ^a/xap€iTY)s.     See  p.  162. 

37.  TToieiv  lAeos  fxerd  (cf.  i.  58). 

38-42.  In  the  house  of  Martha  and  Mary. 

38.  eyhero  ev  t$  with  Infin.     See  note  on  i.  5. 

39.  Tov  Kvpiov  (cf,  V.  17  and  vii.  13.) 


Chap,  xi.  1-15.  Prayer,  and  the  cure  of  the  dumb  demoniac. 

1.   kykv€TO  €V  T^  eivai.      Note  on  i.  5. 

5.  Tts  1^  vfjLiov ;  This  phrase  appears  in  Luke,  but  only 
in  this  '  Travel  Document '  in  which  it  is  frequent. 
See  xi.  11,  xii.  25,  xiv.  5,  28,  31,  xv.  4,  xvii.  7.  In 
Matthew  it  appears  two  or  three  times,  but  always 
in  Logian  sections. 

7.   /xr)  KOTTOi'S  Trapexe  (cf.  xviii.  5.) 

14.  lyci/ero,  followed  by  gen.  abs.  *Any  one 
desiring  to  collect  instances  in  favour  of  a  Hebrew 
primitive  Gospel  would  have  to  name  in  the  first 
rank  this  /cat  eyevero,'     Dalman,  p.  32. 

16-19.  Signs,  and  the  blasphemy  of  the  Pharisees. 

20.  iv  8aKTvX(^  6€ov.  *Luke  seems  to  be  fond  of 
Hebraistic  anthropomorphisms,  i.  51,  66,  73.' 
Plummer  in  loco. 

27-28.  True  relationship  to  Christ.  The  incident 
brings  again  into  prominence  the  *  womanly  refer- 
ence '  characteristic  of  this  source. 

29-32.  The  sign  of  Jonah.  This  section  as  well  as 
others  in  this  chapter  (notably  w.  24-26)  appear 
in  Matthew.  They  may  have  found  their  way  into 
the  collection  of  Logia  used  by  St.  Matthew 
independently  of  the  source  to  which  St.  Luke  was 
indebted. 

33-36.  The  inner  Light. 

37-54.   Our  Lord^s  denunciation  of  hypocrisy. 

39.  ye/Aci  d/OTrayT]?.  Matthew  ye/xet  e^  a/t)7ray^s.  See 
Oxford  Studies^  p.  300. 

49.  ri  o-o^ta  TOV  deov  —  God.  in  His  Providence.  A 
Hebrew  idea.     See  Proverbs  viii.  22-31. 

51.    €0)5  ai/xaros  Za;(a/)iov.      See  Comm. 


VI.]  EXCURSUS  179 

Chap.  xii.  1-12.  This  section  appears  in  Matthew  x.  26-33. 
The  two  versions  reveal  considerable  verbal 
similarity.  This,  however,  need  not  be  taken  to 
indicate  that  the  two  editors  derived  this  matter 
from  Q.  St.  Matthew  may  have  had  access  to 
St.  Luke's  special  source.  At  any  rate  the  peculiar 
constructions  of  that  source  appear  here. 

1.  rip^aro  XkytLV.  See  note  on  iv.  21.  7r/)ocre;(€Te 
ttTTo.     See  also  xx.  46. 

6.  IvwTTiov  Tov  Oeov.     See  note  on  i.  6. 

13-21.   The  parable  of  the  rich  fool. 

19.  €v(fipaLve(rdaL.  Does  not  appear  in  Matthew  or 
Mark,  but  it  is  found  here,  and  also  in  xv.  23,  24, 
29,  32,  xvi.  19.  In  Acts  ii.  26  it  is  used  in  a 
quotation  from  Psalm  xvi.  9. 

22-34.  A  discourse  on  trust  in  God.  This  appears 
also  in  Matthew  vi.  25-33. 

35-48.  A  discourse  on  watchfulness  and  true  service. 

32.  For  the  phrase  SiSovat  rrjv  /Jao-tAetav,  see 
Dalman,  p.  134. 

49-59.  The  effect  of  Christ's  teaching  and  the  signs 
of  the  times. 

50.  /8a7rTt(r/i,a  /3airTi(rd7Jvai.  See  note  on  ii.  8.  cws 
oTov.  So  in  xiii.  8,  xv.  8,  xxii.  16,  xxiv.  49,  all 
from  the  special  source. 

Chap.  xiii.  1-5.  Supposed  judgment  on  Galilceans. 

1.  Traprjorav  drrayyeXXovTes.      See  note  on  i.  20. 

2.  Trap  a  with  acc.  to  express  comparison,  cf.  xviii.  4. 
6-9.   The  barren  fig-tree. 

10-17.  A  woman  is  healed  on  the  Sabbath  Day, 

11.  r^v  avvKviTTova-a.     See  note  on  i.  20. 

16.    Ovyarepa  'A^padp,.     See  note  on  i.  5. 

11-21.   Two  parables. 

22-35.  Conditions  of  admission  to  the  Kingdom  and 

the  lament  over  Jerusalem. 
26.  cvwTTtov  aov.     See  note  on  i.  6. 
32.  For  this  reference  to  Herod,  see  p.   163.     The 

lament  over  Jerusalem  appears  again  in  Matt,  xxiii. 

37-39.     The  editor  of  the  first  Gospel  inserts  it  in 


180  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

the  section  containing  our  Lord's  denunciation  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  as  though  it  was  spoken 
in  the  Temple.  St.  Luke's  source,  however,  gives  it 
as  an  incident  of  the  journey  towards  Jerusalem. 
The  method  of  compiling  the  Logia  followed  in  the 
first  Gospel  makes  it  likely  that  the  true  historical 
setting  is  to  be  found  in  the  third  Gospel. 

Ohap.  xiv.  1-24.  Jesus  in  the  Pharisee^ s  house. 

1.  €y€V€To  €v  T^  IXditv.  Sce  note  on  i.  1,  8.  ^crov 
TraparrjpoviJLevoL,     See  note  on  i.  20. 

3.  vofXLKos.     See  note  on  vii.  30. 

10.  evwTTiov.  This  word  does  not  occur  in  Matt,  or 
Mark,  but  is  used  twenty-four  times  by  St.  Luke, 
tVa  with  fut.  Indie.     Elsewhere  at  xx.  10  in  Luke. 

25-35.  Conditions  of  Discipleship. 

32.  irpea-ISiiav  only  twice  in  New  Testament,  both 
times  in  St.  Luke's  *  Travel  Document.' 

Chap.  XV.  1-32.     Three  parables. 

1.  Siayoyyv^eLv.  Only  here  and  xix.7  in  New  Testa- 
ment.    Both  passages  belong  to  the  special  source. 

7.  SUatos.  Note  the  Jewish  use  of  the  word.  Cf.  i.  6, 
xiv.  14. 

10.  and  18.  Note  the  frequent  use  of  €V(aTnov.  See 
i.  6.  Note. 

Chap.  xvi.  The  parable  of  the  tmj'ust  steward.  This  parable  is 
peculiar  to  the  third  Gospel. 

1.  oiKovofios.  This  word  occurs  also  in  xii.  42,  which 
belongs  to  this  source.  It  occurs  nowhere  else  in 
the  Gospels.     The  Matthaean  equivalent  is  SovAos. 

5.   xP«o<^€tA€Tr^s.     See  note  on  vii.  41. 

14-17.  Jesus  rebukes  the  Pharisees  for  covetousness. 
In  this  short  section  there  occur  several  words  and 
phrases  peculiar  to  this  source,  such  as  SiKaiovv 
(see  note  on  vii.  29),  cvwttiov  and  €VKOTra)T€pov. 

18.-4  pronouncement  on  divorce. 

19-31.  The  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus, 

22.  eyevero.     See  note  on  i.  5. 


VI.]  EXCURSUS  181 

Chap.  xvii.  1-10.  Sundry  discourses. 

11-19.  The  gratitude  of  the  Samaritan  leper. 
Another  sympathetic  reference  to  Samaritans.  See 
p.  162. 

11-14.  ey€V€ro  €v  t$  with  Infin.  See  note  on  i.  5, 
Dr.  Stanton  considers  that  this  section  was  composed 
by  St.  Luke  himself,  the  material  for  the  story  being 
taken  from  oral  tradition.     See  p.  169. 

20-37.     An  Eschatological  section. 

24.    dcTTpaTrr)  da-TpaTTTOvaa.     Cf.  ii.  8,  xi.  46,  xxiii.  46. 

Chap,  xviii.  1-14.  Two  parables. 

5.  7rap€X€iv  KOTTov.     See  note  on  xi.  7. 
9.  i^ovdevovvTas.     Cf.  xxiii.  11. 

Chap.  xix.  1-10.  Zacchceus. 

7.  KaraXva-ai  does  not  occur  elsewhere  in  this  sense 
except  at  ix.  12,  a  passage  which  comes  from  the 
same  source. 

11-27.  The  parable  of  the  pounds. 

11.  This  parable  was  spoken  when  the  journey  was 
nearly  at  an  end. 

12.  XafSelv  eaT;Taj  j8a(rtX<iav.  For  the  reference  to 
the  action  of  Herod,  see  the  commentaries  and 
supra,  p.  163. 

15.  Kttt  €y€V€To  €v  Tw.  See  uoto  on  i.  5.  In  this 
section  the  words  SceTrpaynaTiva-avTO  (15),  av(TTr)p6<s 
(21),  and  KaTao-^aJare  (27)  are  avr.  Xey.  in  New 
Testament. 

Chap.  xxii.  In  this  chapter  occur  several  short  sections  which 
are  peculiar  to  St.  Luke,  and  many  will  have  been 
derived  from  his  special  source  and  woven  into  the 
general  fabric  of  Markan  narrative.  Such  passages 
are  vv.  14-18,  24-32,  33,  35-38,  43-44,  56-66,  70. 
Expressions  characteristic  of  the  source  are  ctti^v/xi^ 
iTreOvfi-qa-a  (15),  Icos  otov  (16-18),  BLafxepi^eardaL  (17), 
01  ajToo-ToAoi  (14),  arrripi^etv  (32).    v.  53  is  Hebraic. 

Chap,  xxiii.  In  this  chapter  too  there  are  passages  taken  from 
the  source  and  interwoven  with   Markan  matter. 


182  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Such  passages  are  vv.  2,  4-5,  6-16,  19,  27-31,  33- 
38,  39-43,  46,  48-49,  54-56. 
xxiii.  6-19.  For  the  reference  to  Herod,  see  p.  163. 

7.  e^ovaria  in  sense  of  jurisdiction.  Not  so  used  else- 
where. 

8.  iyv  OeXiov,     Note  on  i.  5. 

9.  yivofxivov  of.  miracles ;  also  in  iv.  23. 

27-31.  For  the  note  of  sympathy  with  women, 
see  p.  163.  For  other  features  peculiar  to  the  source 
in  these  sections  note  evtoTrtov  (14),  ^arlv  Tri-payfxevov 
(15),  Tov  kaov  (27),  ap^ovrai  Aeyetv  (30).  In  V.  56 
note  that  the  women  who  prepared  the  spices  for 
embalming  the  body  of  Jesus  are  said  to  be  the 
same  as  those  who  had  followed  Him  from  Galilee. 
See  note  on  viii.  3  and  supra,  p.  163. 

Chap.  xxiv.  The  Resurrection.  The  whole  of  this  section  was 
undoubtedly  taken  from  the  special  source.  For  a 
discussion  of  the  whole  chapter  see  article  in  Hibbert 
Journal,  1905,  by  Torkild  Skat  Rordam,  entitled 
The  Reswrrection  Appearances  of  Christ.  The 
chapter  is  closely  connected  linguistically  with  the 
Nativity  section.  The  name  of  Joanna  appears  in 
V.  10  (see  above,  p.  164).  Expressions  M^hich  occur 
in  the  chapter  and  have  already  been  commented. on 
in  these  notes  are : — ttj  3e  fxi^  r(ov  aajS/Sdrc^v  (1), 

kykv€TO  61/  T^  K.T.  A.  (4),  Kttl  iSoTJ  (4),  T^CTttl'  TTOpiVOfXiVOL 

(13),  Svi/aros  €V  Aoyo)  kvavriov  rov  deov  koI  Xaov  (19), 
TOV  'IcrpaTJk  ,   .    .    kvTpovcrdaL  (21),  w<^^t;  (34). 

In  summing  up  the  characteristics  which  we  have  sought  to 
bring  out  in  the  preceding  notes  we  would  notice  : 

1.  That  a  distinctly  Hebraistic  or  Aramaic  character  belongs 
to  every  section  which  we  have  ascribed  to  St  Luke's  special 
source.  The  most  prominent  of  these  are  (a)  the  use  of  iv  t$ 
with  the  infinitive  mood  of  the  verb  which  follows. 

(b)  The  use  of  eTvai  with  the  present  participle. 

(c)  The  frequent  employment  of  such  words  as  IvavTtov  and 
cvwTTiov.     See  note  on  i.  6. 

(d)  The  use  of  such  words  and  phrases  as  xdpis,  €vayyeXi(c(r6aij 
TTpo  TrpocriOTTov,  6  Aaos,  dvyarrjp  'A^padp,  (Sdirricrpa  ^airTLa-dyjvai, 


VL]  EXCURSUS  183 

vo/xlk6^,  "^XiKLa,  KOTTOv  7rap€)(^€iv,  rjp^aTo  Aeyetv,  KaraKXiveaOaij 
K.T.A.  These  are  all  to  be  found  fairly  distributed  over  the 
sections,  and  they  are  for  the  most  part  characteristic ;  that  is, 
they  are  not  found  at  all,  or  in  some  cases  very  slightly,  in  other 
sections  of  the  three  Gospels. 

2.  The  references  to  Herod,  found  only  in  these  sections  and 
in  several  of  them. 

3.  The  references,  always  with  some  amount  of  sympathy,  to 
the  Samaritans.     Nearly  all  of  these  occur  in  these  sections. 

4.  The  use  of  'lovSaia  for  Palestine. 

5.  The  womanly  interest  and  point  of  view  which  is  so 
marked  as  to  give  a  character  to  the  whole  Gospel  is  to  be  found 
in  these  sections. 

6.  A  Judaean  tradition  which  is  apparent  in  both  the 
Nativity  section  and  the  closing  section  which  records  the 
appearances  of  our  Lord  after  His  resurrection. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  these  are  strongly  marked 
characteristics,  and  when  we  find  them,  as  we  do,  not  in  one  or 
two  of  the  sections,  but  fairly  distributed  over  them  all,  they 
bind  the  different  sections  together  into  a  certain  unity  of 
authorship.  Such  a  unity  may  have  been  conferred  by  St.  Luke 
himself,  and  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  some  of  the 
characteristics,  though  not  the  most  striking,  occur  in  other 
sections  of  the  Gospel,  and  also  in  Acts ;  but  when  we  recall 
the  strong  Hebrew  tendency  which  belongs  to  the  whole  of  this 
part  of  the  Gospel,  it  seems  far  more  likely  that  they  are  to  be 
attributed,  not  to  the  Gentile  Luke,  but  to  the  source  from 
which  he  derived  the  invaluable  material  embodied  in  this 
Gospel  alone.  That  source  must  have  been  one  to  which 
St.  Luke  attached  a  very  special  value,  for  otherwise  he  would 
not  have  departed  so  frequently  as  he  has  done,  especially  in 
the  closing  incidents  of  our  Lord's  life  which  he  records,  from 
the  Markan  narrative,  to  which  he  is  also  indebted. 

Dr.  Stanton  in  an  invaluable  chapter  on  jSti/le  in  Luke's 
peculiar  matter^  which  I  have  used  freely  in  compiling  these 
notes,  calls  attention  to  these  peculiarities  of  this  Gospel,  but 
demands,  as  indeed  he  shows,  the  greatest  caution  in  drawing 
conclusions  from  them.  On  the  whole  he  seems  to  incline 
towards  ascribing  their  common  characteristics  to  the  editor 
rather  than  to  his  source,  and  he  assigns  to  Luke  himself  the 


184  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

following  sections,  suggesting  that  the  evangelist  used  an  oral 
basis  in  compiling  these  narratives: — v.  1-11,  vii.  36-50, 
viii.  1-3,  X.  29-37,  xvii.  11-19,  xix.  41-44,  xxiii.  5-12,  14-15, 
39-43,  and  the  whole  of  chapter  xxiv.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that 
with  the  exception  of  two  of  these  passages,  they  all  belong  to 
the  group  under  consideration,  and  their  differentiation  from 
the  rest  of  the  Gospel  gives  them  a  certain  unity,  the  recogni- 
tion of  which  is,  in  our  opinion,  a  distinct  step  in  advance. 
Dr.  Stanton  seems  to  think  that  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
positive  evidence  of  the  use  of  a  document,  and  we  incline  to 
the  belief  that  this  is  greater  both  in  quantity  and  in  value 
than  he  is  apparently  inclined  to  allow.  We  also  find  it 
diflScult  to  reconcile  the  statement  that  for  these  considerable 
and  striking  sections  St.  Luke  had  recourse  to  oral  tradition, 
with  the  strong  pronouncement  against  oral  tradition,  which 
Dr.  Stanton  makes  elsewhere  in  his  work.  The  advocates  of 
oral  tradition  may  well  ask  why,  if  the  theory  be  allowed  for 
these,  it  may  not  be  allowed  for  other  sections.  Dr.  Stanton 
closes  his  chapter  with  a  note  on  the  use  of  ti'a,  which  we  take 
the  liberty  of  transcribing  here,  so  conclusive  does  it  seem  to  us 
in  supporting  the  contention  which  we  make  in  favour  of  a 
documentary,  a  single,  and  a  unique  source  for  all  these 
portions  of  the  third  Gospel  which  we  refer  to  a  single  source. 
Dr.  Stanton  says : 

'  The  use  of  tVa  by  Luke  seems  to  be  of  some  significance  in 
connection  with  the  question  of  his  use  of  a  source,  or  sources, 
for  his  peculiar  matter.  In  the  Acts  this  particle  occurs  only 
twelve  times,  i.e.  much  less  frequently  in  proportion  than  in 
any  other  New  Testament  writing,  and  very  much  less  so  than 
in  most — and  is  for  the  most  part  not  employed  in  an 
unclassical  way.  Turning  to  the  third  Gospel,  we  find  that  in 
Markan  sections  Luke  (except  at  viii.  12,  ix.  45,  xx.  14)  has 
used  it  only  where  Mark  has  it;  and  further  that  he  has 
several  times  avoided  using  it  where  Mark  does;  while  in 
another  place  (vii.  32)  he  so  turns  the  sentence  as  to  make  the 
use  of  tVa  less  strange  than  it  is  in  Mark.  There  are  also  a  few 
instances  in  Logian  passages,  in  two  of  which  (Luke  vi.  31, 
Matthew  vii.  12,  and  Luke  vii.  6,  Matthew  viii.  8)  the  use  of 
Lva  is,  while  in  four  others  (iv.  3,  vi.  34,  xi.  33,  50)  it  may  be 
derived  from  the  source.     When  therefore  we  find  tVa  occurring 


VL]  EXCURSUS  185 

twenty-two  times  in  the  peculiar  matter  in  the  third  Gospel 
(viz.  twice  in  chapters  i.  and  ii.,  and  twenty  times  in  the 
peculiar  passages  subsequent  to  them),  i.e.  nearly  half  as  many 
times  again  as  in  the  whole  of  the  Acts,  one  cannot  but  suspect 
that  several  of  the  instances,  at  least,  were  due  to  Luke's 
finding  them  in  a  source  in  which  the  particle  was  used  more 
largely  than  he  would  of  his  own  mind  have  been  disposed  to 
use  it.' 


EXCURSUS  III 
THE  SAYINGS  OF  JESUS  IN  ST  LUKE'S  GOSPEL 

The  greater  part  of  what  is  called  '  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ' 
in  the  first  Gospel  appears  in  the  third  Gospel  in  two  main 
divisions — vi.  17-49  and  viii.  4-21.  The  chief  differences 
between  the  two  collections  of  sayings  have  been  noted  in 
chapter  ii.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  many  of  the  sayings 
which  appear  in  the  Matthaean  collection  are  given  by  St.  Luke 
as  separate  sayings  uttered  by  Jesus  on  different  occasions. 
These  are  found  in  greatest  number  in  '  the  Great  Insertion,' 
or  'the  Travel  Document.'  The  following  may  serve  as 
outstanding  examples  : 

Chap.      X.  5-7,  12,  13-15,  23. 

xi.  1-4,  9-13,  14-28,  34-35. 
xii.  2-9,  22-31,  33-34,  39-46,  51-53,  57-59. 
xiii.  5,  20-21,  26-27,  34-35. 
xiv.  5,  15-24,  26-27,  34-35. 
XV.  3-7. 
xvi.  13,  16-17. 
xvii.  1,  23-24,  26-27,  30,  34-35. 

Now  this  fact  strongly  supports  the  contention,  made  on 
pages  56-57,  that  these  sayings  did  not  come  before  the 
evangelists  of  the  first  and  third  Gospels  in  the  form  of  some 
document  in  which  the  sayings  had  been  already  arranged  in 
some  sort  of  order,  but  that  the  two  editors  were  entirely 
independent  in  this  portion  of  their  work.  If  St.  Matthew 
dealt  with  some  collection  of  sayings  which  he  himself 
arranged  according  to  a  plan  which  commended  itself  to  him, 


186  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

then  we  can  understand  how  it  is  that  he  would  place  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  such  sayings  as  he  considered 
belonged  to  that  phase  of  his  Master's  teaching  which  he  was 
anxious  to  preserve,  whether  they  were  spoken  early  or  late  in 
the  course  of  that  Master's  ministry.  St.  Luke  working  on 
quite  a  different  plan,  and  finding  the  sayings  embodied  in  the 
record  of  the  journey  of  Jesus  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem,  would 
give  them  as  they  appeared  in  his  source.  Dr.  Willoughby 
Allen  in  his  analysis  of  the  Logian  document,  used  by  the 
editor  of  the  first  Gospel,  comments  upon  some  of  these  sayings 
as  recorded  by  St.  Luke,  and  says  that  they  did  not  stand  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  St.  Luke  would  have  placed  them 
in  vi.  17-49  or  viii.  4-21.  To  the  present  writer  it  seems  a 
more  likely  explanation  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  a 
collocation  of  sayings  made  by  St.  Matthew,  and  that  the 
difference  between  the  two  Gospels  in  this  particular  is  to  be 
accounted  for  as  above.  So  again  Dr.  Allen  in  commenting 
upon  Matthew  v.  18-19  says  that  this  is  'unsuitably  placed'  in 
the  sermon,  but  the  lack  of  coherence  on  which  Dr.  Allen  bases 
this  remark  is  to  be  explained  as  due  to  the  character  of 
St.  Matthew's  source,  and  the  method  upon  which  he  worked. 
The  same  explanation  accounts  for  the  position  of  Matthew  v.  25 
(cf.  Luke  xii.  57-59).  'The  connection  in  the  Sermon  is 
artificial  and  literary,'  says  Dr.  Allen.  Such  a  comment  is 
correct  if  we  suppose  that  there  was  any  great  amount  of 
coherence  between  the  sayings  as  they  came  before  St.  Matthew, 
but  the  '  literary '  character  of  the  connection  is  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  method  of  St.  Matthew  as  we  conceive  it. 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       187 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  JUSTIFICATION   OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM 

The  study  of  Grospel  Origins  is  not  an  end  in  itself.  It  is 
after  all  only  a  preKminary  study.  But  it  is  a  study  which 
is  absolutely  necessary  if  the  Christian  is  to  arrive  at  the 
full  assurance  of  faith.  We  shall  indeed  begin  with  our 
personal  experience  of  Christ,  but  if  we  are  to  know  the 
certainty  of  those  things  wherein  we  have  been  instructed 
we  must  consider  the  historical  records  which  account  for 
the  experience ;  we  are  bound  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
they  possess  sufficient  authority  to  enable  us  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  us.  The  problems  raised 
by  the  Gospels  merely  as  literature  are  of  sufficiently 
engrossing  interest,  but  it  is  not  from  the  Hterary  point 
of  view  that  we  claim  urgency  for  the  many  questions 
which  we  have  been  considering.  The  whole  religious 
position  of  the  Christian  depends  ultimately  upon  whether 
the  facts  of  the  Gospel  story  can  be  guaranteed.  Christianity 
depends  upon  revelation,  and  this  is  subjective  in  the 
experience  of  the  behever,  but  objective  in  facts  of  history. 
The  revelation  of  the  Risen  Lord  lacks  definiteness  unless 
it  can  be  related  to  the  human  Hfe  of  Jesus,  and  the  history 
of  the  record  of  that  hfe  assumes  an  importance  which  can 
never  be  exaggerated  as  soon  as  this  is  clearly  seen.  We 
shall  be  neither  surprised  nor  impatient  when  the  question 
of  miracle  forces  itself  again  and  again  upon  our  attention  ; 
for  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord  from  the  dead  is  central 
in  the  Christian  faith,  and  in  view  of  that  Resurrection 
the  question  of  other  miraculous  works  becomes  entirely 
secondary.     The  general  question  of  miracles  is  before  us 


188  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

again,  and  we  shall  show  presently  how  impossible  it  is 
to  discuss  that  question  without  raising  other  questions 
which  have  to  do  with  the  fact  of  authorship,  and  with 
the  circumstances  under  which  the  writings  which  record 
those  miracles  were  composed.  It  will  also  be  seen  that 
any  attempt  to  argue  either  for  or  against  the  fact  of 
miracle  is  doomed  to  failure  whenever  the  argument 
rests  upon  mere  presupposition  with  reference  to  Gospel 
sources. 

But  the  question  of  miracles  does  not  stand  alone.  It  is 
after  all  only  a  part  of  a  far  larger  question,  and  this  is 
what  has  been  happily  called  '  the  Fact  of  Christ.'  The 
Person  of  our  Lord  is  the  glowing  centre  round  which  the 
highest  human  thought  revolves.  It  is  in  Him  that  we 
see  the  Father.  It  is  in  Him  that  we  have  our  redemption, 
and  in  Him  stands  our  hope  of  eternal  Ufe.  The  Gospels 
are  so  many  attempts  to  set  before  men  the  fact  and  the 
interpretation  of  that  Personahty.  They  contain  the 
witness  of  Jesus  to  Himself,  and  the  testimony  of  those 
who  have  declared  that  which  they  saw  with  their  eyes,* 
that  which  they  contemplated  with  a  vision  which 
deepened  as  they  peered  into  the  depth  beyond  the  depth, 
and  that  which  their  hands  handled  in  the  sacred 
ministries  of  love  and  fellowship. 

The  Personahty  of  Jesus  is  being  considered  to-day 
from  two  different  points  of  view,  and  we  mention  these 
not  with  the  intention  of  discussing  them  so  much  as  to 
make  good  the  claim  with  which  we  are  here  concerned — 
that  in  neither  case  can  the  positions  taken  up  by  the 
different  schools  be  made  good  unless  the  foundation  is 
first  laid  in  estabhshing  the  value  of  the  Gospels  as  historical 
documents.  The  ideahst  would  abandon  the  Gospels 
altogether.  It  is  true  that  he  derives  from  them  some 
vague  concept  of  Christ,  but  he  attaches  httle  value  to 
the  history.  That  which  is  of  supreme  importance  for 
1  1  John  i.  1. 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM        189 

him  is  the  entirely  subjective  experience  of  which  he  is 
conscious. 

There  is  another  school  consisting  of  those  who  confine 
their  attention  to  what  they  are  pleased  to  caU  '  History.' 
They  begin  by  emptying  the  record  of  all  that  goes  beyond 
the  range  of  common  human  experience,  and  they  seek 
to  account  for  the  PersonaUty  of  our  Lord  on  the  ground 
of  His  environment,  social,  intellectual,  and  rehgious. 
To  them  He  was  the  product  of  His  age,  and  beyond  that 
they  do  not  go.  The  fact  that  the  age  in  which  He  Hved 
witnessed  the  rise  of  what  has  become  known  as  '  the 
Apocalyptic  Method  *  is  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  explain 
whatever  reference  to  transcendent  life  and  power  may 
appear  in  our  Lord's  witness  to  Himself.  Here  again  we 
shall  endeavour  to  show  that  before  any  measure  of 
finahty  can  appear  in  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in  this 
matter,  the  history  of  the  documents  upon  which  the 
argument  is  based  needs  the  fullest  consideration.  We 
shaU  endeavour  to  deal  briefly  with  each  of  these  points 
in  the  remainder  of  this  chapter. 

Appeals  are  constantly  being  made  for  and  against  a 
befief  in  miracles  on  the  ground  of  historical  criticism  of 
the  Gospels  which  record  them.  It  is,  of  course,  the  only 
sound  method  of  deahng  with  the  question.  To  begin 
with  the  laying  down  of  an  axiom  that  '  miracles  do  not 
happen '  is  to  beg  the  whole  question  at  issue.  We  are 
not  then  surprised  to  find  that  in  a  recent  work  on  miracles 
the  argument  is  based  mainly  upon  historical  criticism 
of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Mr.  J.  M.  Thompson  ^  bases  the 
greater  part  of  his  contention  upon  such  facts  as  we  have 
discussed  in  preceding  chapters  ;  but  it  is  to  be  questioned 
whether  he  does  not  take  too  much  for  granted,  and  whether 
he  is  justified  in  drawing  the  conclusions  with  which  he 
presents  us.  He  says  that  St.  Mark  knows  nothing  of 
the  Virgin  Birth,  and  he  concludes  that  the  evidence  for 
1  Miracles  in  the  New  TestamerU, 


190  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

this  event  is  considerably  weakened  in  consequence.  He 
also  assumes  that  the  second  Gospel  is  composite  ;  that 
it  contains  in  addition  to  the  Petrine  tradition  a  consider- 
able amount  which  was  derived  from  Q,  as  weU  as  from 
other  sources.  He  then  shows  that  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  miracles  belong  to  the  Petrine  tradition.  He 
further  divides  this  last  into  two  sections,  one  describing 
a  GaKlean  and  the  other  a  Judaean  ministry,  and  shows 
that  in  the  latter  there  is  no  record  of  miraculous  works 
done  by  our  Lord.  He  then  asks  how  it  is  that  no  miracles 
were  wrought  in  hostile  Judaea  but  only  in  friendly 
Gahlee.  The  implication  in  this  somewhat  rhetorical 
question  is  perfectly  obvious.  It  is  to  discount  the 
evidence  for  miracles. 

We  do  not  of  course  discuss  the  general  question,*  or 
attempt  to  value  the  evidence  for  or  against  the  historicity 
of  the  record  in  this  chapter.  Our  one  contention  is  that 
Mr.  Thompson's  conclusions  rest  upon  assumptions,  and 
as  the  great  body  of  modern  scholars  are  unable  to  accept 
his  presuppositions,  his  argument  carries  no  weight  with 
them,  though  it  may  seriously  prejudice  the  minds  of  those 
who  have  not  been  able  to  consider  the  critical  questions 
involved.  To  take  the  points  just  mentioned  in  inverse 
order,  we  notice  that  no  argument  against  miracles  can 
be  based  with  any  fairness  upon  the  fact  that  they  are 
more  frequent  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  Markan  record 
than  they  are  in  the  latter.  That  record  is  almost  entirely 
descriptive  of  the  Galilean  ministry  of  our  Lord.  For 
some  reason  or  other — and  it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to 
suggest  a  reason — St.  Peter  chose  to  limit  his  account  of 
our  Lord's  ministry  to  that  portion  of  it  which  was 
accompUshed  in  Galilee ;  and  St.  Mark  follows  St.  Peter 
closely,  as  internal  evidence  as  well  as  tradition  assures  us. 
According  to  St.  Peter,  then,  our  Lord  visited  Jerusalem 
only  to  die.     That  He  had  preached  in  Judaea,  and  had 

1  See  Miracles:  An  Outline  of  the  Christian  View,  by  the  Rer.  F.  Piatt, 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       191 

in  the  course  of  His  ministry  worked  miracles,  we  know 
from  the  fourth  Gospel ;  but  as  Mr.  Thompson  holds  that 
this  Gospel '  cannot  be  treated  as  a  historically  true  account 
of  the  miracles  of  Christ,'  we  shall  not  labour  the  point. 
For  our  purpose  the  fourth  Gospel  may  be  left  entirely 
out  of  account,  though  modem  scholars  are  coming  to  see 
that  for  minuteness  and  accuracy  of  historical  detail  the 
fourth  Gospel  is  superior  to  the  Synoptic  account.  But 
even  in  the  latter  there  are  indications  that  the  evangeUsts 
knew  of  a  Judaean  ministry,  and  in  the  many  spaces  left 
uncovered  by  the  Synoptic  tradition  there  is  room  for  a 
Judaean  ministry.  If  these  evangehsts  chose  to  Umit 
their  accounts  to  the  occasion  when  our  Lord  was  crucified, 
the  absence  of  miracle  on  such  an  occasion  is  without 
significance  so  far  as  the  historical  evidence  for  miracles 
is  concerned.  The  absence  of  such  mighty  works  cannot 
be  used  to  support  an  argument  that  the  appearance  of 
miracles  in  the  record  is  due  to  the  simple  and  superstitious 
imagination  of  the  peasants  of  Galilee. 

With  reference  to  Q  Mr.  Thompson  concludes  that  while 
this  document  is  the  only  rival  to  the  Petrine  memoirs 
of  St.  Mark  as  an  early  and  good  authority,  it  contains 
no  evidence  for  miracles.  But  here  again  Mr.  Thompson 
bases  his  argument  upon  a  pure  assumption.  In  all  the 
criticism  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  there  is  no  question 
more  disputed  than  that  of  the  contents  of  Q.  If  the 
arguments  advanced  in  preceding  chapters  have  any 
weight  it  may  fairly  be  argued  that  the  document  so 
designated  contained  no  narrative  whatever,  and  that  it 
consisted  of  sayings  of  Jesus  with  the  minimum  of  intro- 
ductory matter  intended  merely  to  serve  as  connections 
between  one  saying  and  another.  To  make  the  absence 
of  miracles  from  writings  which  had  nothing  to  do  with 
them  an  argument  against  miracles  generally  is  not  a 
method  to  be  commended  in  any  department  of  literary 
criticism. 


192  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

It  is  of  course  open  to  any  one  to  say  that  the  view  of  Q 
advanced  in  this  work  is  not  to  be  accepted,  but  even  if 
Hamack's  reconstruction  of  Q  be  followed,  as  it  is  confessedly 
by  Mr.  Thompson,  the  fact  should  not  have  been  ignored 
that  Harnack  himself  says  of  Q  that  '  it  was  in  no  sense 
a  biographical  narrative,  but  essentially  a  collection  of 
discourses.'  It  is  true  that  in  spite  of  that  statement 
Harnack  includes  the  miracle  of  the  heahng  of  the 
centurion's  servant  in  his  reconstructed  Q,  but  his  incon- 
sistency in  doing  so  has  often  been  pointed  out.  It  is 
quite  clear  that  whether  we  accept  Harnack' s,  or  any 
other  reconstruction  of  Q,  we  cannot  argue  against  miracles 
on  the  ground  that  they  do  not  appear  in  that  document. 
But  we  are  quite  prepared,  if  needs  be,  to  argue  for  miracles 
even  from  Q.  For  while  it  contains  no  account  of  miracle, 
it  does  present  us  with  the  fact  that  our  Lord  in  many  of 
His  discourses  takes  the  fact  that  He  had  done  such  works 
for  granted,  and  bases  His  arguments  upon  the  fact. 
He  assumed  that  His  miraculous  works  were  matters 
of  common  knowledge. 

The  same  weakness  in  Mr.  Thompson's  method  of 
criticism  appears  again  when  he  comes  to  discuss  the 
greatest  miracle  of  all — the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord  from 
the  dead.  We  are  told  that  '  the  witness  of  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke  is  conditioned  by  their  habit  of  editing 
Mark  without  fresh  evidence  according  to  certain  a 
priori  tendencies ;  that  when  they  are  drawing  on  new 
sources  of  information  they  are  probably  (with  the 
exception  of  Q)  less  trustworthy  than  Mark.'  With  refer- 
ence to  St.  Mark's  evidence  Mr.  Thompson  goes  on  to 
tell  us  that  he  gives  no  account  of  the  actual  Resurrection, 
'  his  account  breaks  off  without  describing  any  Resurrec- 
tion appearances,  but  not  before  it  has  hinted — partly 
by  its  very  reaction  against  this  view — that  the  apostles' 
story  of  the  appearances,  not  the  women's  story  of  the 
empty  tomb,  was  the  original  and  central  ground  of  behef 


vn.l      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       193 

in  the  Resurrection.'  It  is  difficult  to  take  such  state- 
ments seriously.  The  veriest  tyro  in  Textual  Criticism 
knows  that  the  abrupt  ending  of  the  second  Gospel  is  due 
to  the  mutilation  of  a  manuscript.  It  would  be  a  curious 
piece  of  composition  which  '  broke  off '  with  the  words 
€<f>oPovvTo  yap,  and  in  view  of  this  to  speak  of  St.  Mark's 
account  as  one  which  '  breaks  off  without  describing  any 
Resurrection  appearances,'  and  then  to  imply  from  this 
that  St.  Mark  felt  a  mental  reaction  against  the  women's 
story  of  the  empty  tomb,  and  that  the  evidence  from  the 
second  Gospel  in  favour  of  the  Resurrection  is  thereby 
impaired,  is  false  criticism  and  false  reasoning.  The 
account  of  the  Resurrection  in  Matthew  follows  that  in  the 
second  Gospel  so  closely,  up  to  the  point  where  the  break 
in  the  text  of  the  latter  occurs,  that  we  may  feel  a  reason- 
able amount  of  confidence  that  the  true  conclusion  of 
the  second  Gospel  is  to  be  discovered  in  the  first.  Mr. 
Thompson  writes  as  though  the  account  of  the  Resurrection 
in  the  first  Gospel  was  the  work  of  St.  Matthew,  but  if 
there  is  one  thing  in  the  whole  range  of  Gospel  criticism 
which  has  received  anything  hke  a  consensus  of  opinion 
it  is  that  the  narrative  portion  of  the  first  Gospel  is  Markan 
in  origin.  Where  additional  details  appear  in  the  first 
Gospel,  it  is  quite  possible  that  these  are  due,  not  to 
editing  on  the  part  of  St.  Matthew,  but  to  the  fact  that 
an  earher  edition  of  the  Markan  narrative  was  used  by  the 
unknown  evangehst  who  adds  that  narrative  to  the 
Matthaean  Logia,  and  thus  composed  the  first  Gospel  as 
we  have  it. 

Why  should  it  be  assumed  that  where  St.  Luke 
draws  from  other  sources  they  are  less  trustworthy  than 
St.  Mark  ?  We  are  told  that  the  latter  did  not  himself 
follow  Jesus.  His  record  consists  of  so  much  of  the 
facts  recounted  by  St.  Peter  as  he  remembered.  There  is 
room  in  this  for  more  than  one  explanation  of  omissions 
from  the  Markan  narrative.     But  St.  Luke's  source  for 


194  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [oh. 

this  section  of  the  third  Gospel — even  if  we  do  not  accept 
that  he  derived  it  from  one  of  the  very  women  who  visited 
the  tomb  and  found  it  empty — reveals  a  great  knowledge 
of  detail  introduced  incidentally  and  without  the  slightest 
straining  after  effect,  and  we  may  well  conclude  that  this 
evidence  is  derived  at  first  hand,  and  from  one  who  was 
apparently  an  eye-witness  of  what  is  described.  If  then 
we  are  to  choose  between  the  two  sources — and  we  have 
yet  to  discover  any  real  contradiction  between  them — 
the  balance  would  seem  to  incHne  towards  the  Lukan 
rather  than  the  Markan  source. 

In  deahng  with  the  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  Mr. 
Thompson  reveals  a  method  of  criticism  in  which  we 
cannot  follow  him.  St.  Mark's  account  of  our  Lord's 
ministry,  after  the  very  briefest  introduction  describing 
the  Baptism,  begins  in  GaHlee.  To  argue  from  the  absence 
of  all  reference  to  our  Lord's  Ufe  prior  to  this  event  that 
St.  Mark  knows  nothing  of  the  Virgin  Birth  is  an  out- 
standing example  of  that  argumentum  a  silentio  which, 
one  might  have  thought,  has  been  sufficiently  discredited. 
We  have  discussed  these  conclusions  of  Mr.  Thompson 
not  at  aU  in  order  to  weigh  the  evidence  for  or  against  the 
facts  which  he  discusses,  but  solely  to  show  how  absolutely 
necessary  it  is  to  have  before  us  some  clear  and  intelligent 
account  of  the  origins  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  if  we  wish 
to  draw  conclusions  from  these  records  of  events.  No 
argument  based  upon  the  history  of  the  records  can  carry 
conviction  unless  we  first  deal  with  the  questions  of 
authorship,  and  of  the  circumstances  attending  the  com- 
positions of  the  writings.  Mr.  Thompson  bases  his  con- 
clusions upon  '  criticism,'  but  it  is  precisely  on  the  critical 
side  that  his  arguments  are  most  unsound,  and  the  same 
result  must  follow  upon  every  attempt  to  argue  from  the 
record  without  first  determining  as  far  as  possible  the 
sources  from  which  that  record  was  drawn. 

But  the  question  of  miracles  is  not  the  only  one  before 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM        196 

us  in  the  present  day.  Dr.  Schweitzer  and  others  have 
brought  into  prominence  the  question  of  Apocaljrpse  as 
affording  an  explanation  of  prominent  features  of  the  Gospel 
story,  and  this  question  too  must  be  examined  in  the  hght  of 
Gospel  origins  in  so  far  as  these  can  be  ascertained.  The 
Gospels  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  hterary  docu- 
ments, and  they  were  written  in  an  age  in  which  what  we 
call  '  Apocalyptic  Literature  '  was  in  vogue.  Our  Lord's 
words  and  much  of  His  teaching  show  that  He  also 
followed  this  method  of  expressing  Himself.  Whether 
He  did  so  within  limits,  or  was  *  a  thoroughgoing 
Eschatologist,'  does  not  enter  into  the  reference  of  this 
work.^  But  the  analysis  of  such  eschatological  passages 
as  appear  in  the  Gospels  can  scarcely  be  attempted  apart 
from  the  prior  question  of  Gospel  sources.  As  to  the  fact 
that  our  Lord  used  the  language  of  Apocalypse  we  may 
refer  briefly  to  the  considerable  section  which  we  have  in 
Mark  xiii.,  a  section  which  is  reproduced  in  Matthew  xxiv. 
and  Luke  xxi.  There  are  also  shorter  passages  in  which 
the  idea,  though  really  dominant,  is  only  implied.  Such 
passages,  for  instance,  as  Mark  viii.  38  and  Mark  xiv.  62 
can  be  interpreted  only  in  the  Hght  of  *  Apocalypse.' 
These  ideas  are  also  prominent  in  not  a  few  of  our  Lord's 
parables.  The  Parables  of  the  Ten  Virgins,  the  Tares, 
the  Ten  Talents,  and  most  of  those  relating  to  '  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven '  are  distinctly  Apocalyptic  in  character.  But 
even  more  significant  than  these  are  the  many  words  and 
phrases  so  frequently  on  the  hps  of  Jesus.  Such  are 
*  The  Son  of  Man,'  '  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven,'  '  The  End 
of  the  World — or  Age.'  Such  phrases  can  only  be  con- 
sidered in  the  hght  of  their  use  in  the  literature  which 
preceded  and  which  followed  the  days  of  our  Lord's 
ministry. 

The  significance  of  the  *  Little  Apocalypse  '  in  Mark  xiii. 

*  On  the  general  quefition  the  writer  may  be  allowed  to  refer  the  reader  to 
his  Fernley  Lecture  entitled  Christ  and  the  Gospels ,  chap.  vi. 


196  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

with  references  to  Gospel  sources  has  been  already  dis- 
cussed in  chapter  v.,  and  we  need  do  no  more  here  than 
refer  the  reader  to  what  has  been  already  written.  But 
the  fact  that  Apocalyptic  writing  appears  in  both  the 
Markan  and  the  Logian  documents  has  led  some  to  consider 
whether  there  is  not  to  be  detected  a  heightening  of  effect 
in  the  expressions  used  in  later  writings  when  compared 
with  those  used  in  earher.  Thus  in  a  valuable  appendix 
to  the  Oxford  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem  we  find 
Mr.  Streeter  speaking  of  '  an  evolution  of  eschatological 
conceptions  from  the  present  spiritual  conception  of  the 
Kingdom  in  Q,  through  Mark,  to  Matthew.'  In  Q  while 
the  catastrophic  eschatology  is  undoubtedly  present,  it 
is  vague  and  undefined.  Mark  belongs  to  the  transitional 
stage.  Matthew  further  elaborates  the  eschatological 
element,  and  emphasises  its  Apocalyptic  side.  He  even 
shows  '  a  tendency  to  omit  sayings  inconsistent  with  the 
view  of  the  kingdom  as  future  and  catastrophic'  The 
passages  upon  which  Mr.  Streeter  bases  this  differentiation 
must  be  duly  weighed  by  the  student  of  the  Gospels.  We 
can  here  discuss  only  the  general  question  in  the  hght  of 
Gospel  sources,  and  of  their  relation  to  one  another.  From 
this  point  of  view  we  would  say  that  any  argument  based 
upon  the  relation  of  these  sources  to  one  another  in  time 
must  always  be  precarious.  We  do  not  know  that  the 
second  Gospel,  as  we  have  it,  preceded  the  first.  As  we 
have  shown  above  there  are  many  features  of  the  Markan 
narrative  which  indicate  that  the  version  of  this  which 
appears  in  the  first  Gospel  was  prior  to  that  which  we  have 
in  the  second.  The  argument  from  Q  also  is  uncertain. 
We  do  not  know  when  the  compilation  of  sa3dngs  used  by 
St.  Matthew  was  made,  or  to  what  extent  they  took  their 
present  form  by  reason  of  the  interpretative  method  of 
those  who  compiled  them.  It  is  quite  possible  that 
Logia  were  added  to  the  collection  subsequently  to  St. 
Mark's  episcopacy  in  Egypt,  during  which  he  wrote  down 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM        197 

for  the  Church  in  that  country  his  memoirs  of  St.  Peter's 
preaching.  But  apart  from  such  considerations  we  may 
well  ask  whether  the  true  order  of  development  was  not 
more  hkely  to  be  one  in  which  the  more  '  catastrophic ' 
features  of  the  '  Parousia '  would  appear  in  the  earHer 
rather  than  in  the  later  writings.  We  know  that  St. 
Paul's  view  of  the  Parousia,  as  it  appears  in  the  Corinthian 
Epistles,  differs  from  that  which  he  describes  in  his  first 
Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  and  every  year  which  passed 
would  lead  the  Church  to  see  that  the  view  which  it  held 
at  first  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  in  power  and  in  the 
glory  of  the  Father  needed  modification.  It  would  be 
led  to  interpret  His  sayings  more  and  more  as  declarations 
of  great,  moral,  and  spiritual  effects,  and  it  is  just  the 
later  writings  which  would  reveal  this  tendency. 

To  the  present  writer  it  seems  a  sounder  method  of 
criticism  to  abandon  all  attempts  at  chronological  sequence 
in  such  matters.  It  is  difficult  to  decide  what  was  the 
chronological  order  of  the  Gospels  as  we  have  them,  and 
it  is  still  more  difficult  to  say  exactly  when  this  source 
or  that  was  composed.  It  is  better  to  content  ourselves 
with  what  should  find  a  ready  acceptance — that  our 
Lord  used  the  language  of  His  days,  and  would  thus  adopt 
a  phraseology  which  might  suggest  to  His  hearers  a 
catastrophic  interpretation,  passing  as  it  would  do  through 
minds  that  had  been  trained  to  take  that  view  of  the 
coming  of  the  Son  of  Man.  But  though  He  used  the 
words  He  filled  them  with  a  new  content.  He  laid  the 
emphasis  where  those  who  preceded  Him  had  failed  to 
lay  it.  His  teaching  contained  the  germ  of  that  which 
went  far  beyond  the  social  and  pohtical  dreams  of  Jewish 
Apocal3rpse.  The  truth  was  greater  than  the  phrase  which 
held  it,  and  only  slowly  have  men  come  to  see — if  haply 
even  now  they  see — the  fuller  content  of  revelation,  and 
the  unfolding  of  that  mystery  which  is  Christ  in  us,  the 
hope  of  glory. 


198  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Eschatology  is,  as  we  have  said,  only  a  point  of  view 
from  which  the  attempt  may  be  made  to  account  for  the 
effect  which  the  PersonaUty  of  our  Lord  has  produced 
upon  human  thought  and  hfe,  and  side  by  side  with  this 
attempt  to  account  for  Christ  as  the  natural  product  of 
an  age  possessing  marked  historical  characteristics  we 
have  the  many  attempts  that  are  being  made  to  offer  to 
the  world  an  individuaUstic  interpretation  of  the  same 
Personality.  To  many  minds  reUgion  is  independent  of 
all  revelation  on  the  plane  of  human  history.  No  longer 
are  the  Scriptures  searched  because  they  testify  of  Jesus. 
Lnpressions,  often  conditioned  by  aesthetic  or  philo- 
sophic considerations  alone,  make  up  all  that  is  required 
in  the  sphere  of  rehgion  ;  and  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world  for  a  new  cult  to  be  started,  and  to  attract  a  con- 
siderable number  of  followers,  if  the  new  apostle  is  suffi- 
ciently startling  in  his  method  or  in  himself  to  challenge 
attention.  This  is  due  very  largely  to  a  fact  which  is  not 
in  itself  to  be  deplored.  It  is  the  result  of  the  modem 
emphasis  upon  experience  as  authoritative  in  rehgion. 
The  age  in  which  dogma  held  the  first  place,  and  the  accept- 
ance of  a  creed  was  considered  to  be  an  adequate  response 
to  its  pronouncements,  has  passed  or  is  rapidly  passing 
away.  In  place  of  dogma  men  are  turning  to  schemes 
of  morals,  which  may  be  individual,  social,  or  pohtical. 
Others  surrender  themselves  to  a  still  more  subjective 
expression  of  faith.  The  formula  of  acceptance  which  the 
individual  Christian  keeps  before  himself  in  judging  of  the 
acceptabihty  of  any  form  of  rehgion  is  '  That  which  finds 
me.'  It  is  the  moral  or  psychological  significance  of  faith 
which  seems  to  be  most  prominent  at  the  present  moment. 
The  uncertainty  which  gathers  around  everything  which 
has  to  do  with  a  document — whether  that  document 
records  the  facts  of  history,  or  the  interpretation  of  those 
facts — has  led  to  a  general  impatience  with  any  presenta- 
tion of  the  Christian  faith  in  which  the  intellectual  element 


vu.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM        199 

is  at  aU  prominent.  This  tendency  is  not  to  be  wholly 
regretted.  The  emphasis  laid  upon  creed  too  often 
favoured  a  lessening  of  the  moral  content  of  spiritual  Hfe, 
and  the  contrast  was  at  once  set  up  between  '  forms  of 
faith  '  and  a  Hfe  which  was  *  in  the  right.'  Such  a  contrast 
should  never  have  arisen.  The  two  are  not  mutually 
exclusive.  Indeed  it  is  becoming  clearer  every  day  that 
the  one  can  scarcely  exist  without  the  other,  and  that  one 
should  thus  be  pitted  against  the  other  is  the  result  of  that 
exaggeration  in  emphasis  which  apparently  we  never 
learn  to  avoid.  At  any  rate  the  fact  remains  that  this 
contrast  has  been  set  up,  and  where  this  takes  place  the 
vote  is  given  in  favour  of  the  moral  Hfe. 

It  was  inevitable  too  that  this  same  intellectual  emphasis 
should  bring  faith  into  comparison  with  those  logical 
processes  which  belong  to  the  school  of  science,  and  as  soon 
as  the  latter  began  to  appeal  to  the  thought  and  imagina- 
tion of  men  a  spirit  of  antagonism  between  the  two  began 
to  make  itself  felt.  This  antagonism  also,  Hke  that 
between  morals  and  faith,  never  possessed  any  real  ground, 
and  this  is  happily  being  reaHsed  both  on  the  side  of  science 
and  on  that  of  reHgion.  But  where  it  existed  the  science 
which  dealt  with  phenomena  governed  by  fixed  and  un- 
varying laws  seemed  more  definite  and  more  final  in  its 
conclusions  than  that  which  moved  in  the  realm  of  faith, 
and  it  was  accordingly  preferred.  In  so  far  as  this  revolt 
from  reHgion  indicates  merely  a  protest  against  the  excessive 
InteUectuaHsm  which  produced  this  false  antagonism  it 
is  to  be  approved  rather  than  deplored.  But  as  is  always 
the  case,  the  reaction  has  been  carried  to  an  extreme, 
and  the  period  in  which  agnosticism  was  prevalent  has  been 
followed  by  one  in  which  pure  subjectivity  threatens  to 
become  the  accepted  basis  of  faith.  Esoteric  systems — 
often  advanced  by  irresponsible  individuals — Theosophies, 
and  different  forms  of  Christian  Science,  have  come  into 
vogue,  and  the  number  of  those  who  hold  one  or  other 


200  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

of  these  with  more  or  less  of  conviction  must  be  consider- 
able. We  refer  to  them  merely  to  illustrate  the  perils 
which  threaten  any  undue  emphasis  upon  personal 
experience  apart  from  a  revelation  in  history,  as  a  basis 
for  rehgion.  They  are  all  perversions  of  an  individual 
expression  of  faith  which  has  not  been  corrected  by  the 
presentation  in  history  of  the  true  foundations  of  faith. 

For  while  it  is  true  that  the  Christian  faith  is  more  than 
the  Christian  creed,  it  is  impossible  to  dispense  altogether 
with  the  objective  element  in  religion.  It  is  true  that 
religion  is  to  be  found  in  the  impact  of  one  personality 
upon  another — the  divine  upon  the  human — and  in  the 
response  of  the  human  to  the  divine,  but  we  cannot  afford 
to  ignore  the  revelation  in  history  through  which  that 
impact  has  become  definite  and  complete  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  man.  The  true  corrective — indeed  the  only 
corrective — to  the  fancies  and  extravagances  of  subjective 
faith  is  to  be  found  in  the  interpretation  of  the  history 
which  has  come  down  to  us.  We  need  to  verify  and  con- 
firm the  experience  by  the  recorded  fact.  We  are  always 
in  peril  of  reducing  religion  to  a  superstition,  and  if  we 
would  avoid  the  danger  we  must  find  in  the  Gospels  the 
deHneation  of  the  causes  which  account  for  the  spiritual 
assurance,  and  which  alone  lead  it  to  its  full  development. 
The  important  thing  is  indeed  the  revelation — the  content 
of  the  Gospels  rather  than  the  means  by  which  it  reaches 
us,  but  if  we  are  to  know  the  certainty  concerning  the 
things  in  which  we  have  been  instructed,  we  are  bound  to 
scrutinise  the  record  by  which  alone  we  can  assure  ourselves 
that  we  have  not  foUowed  cunningly  devised  fables. 

The  Gospels  present  us  with  the  history-basis  of  a 
great  spiritual  revelation ;  we  must  ask  ourselves  what 
credentials  they  have  to  offer.  The  process  of  doing  so 
entails  a  mental  discipUne,  from  which  many  shrink  in 
these  days  of  hasty  work  and  superficial  investigation,  but 
we  must  admit  that  the  burden  is  laid  with  even  greater 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       201 

weight  upon  our  spirits,  and  we  cannot  do  justice  to  the 
capacities  of  our  spiritual  nature  unless  we  justify  the 
tremendous  claim  with  which  these  Gospels  present  us. 
The  confusion,  to  say  nothing  of  the  moral  weakness  which 
follows  upon  any  neglect  to  consider  these  historical 
documents,  has  been  well  expressed  by  a  great  German 
scholar  and  critic,  and  we  shall  not  apologise  for  the 
length  of  the  passage  which  we  quote  from  his  writings. 
Harnack,  speaking  of  the  present  situation  in  Gospel 
criticism,  says : 

'  Men  soar  away  into  subhme  discussions  concerning 
the  meaning  of  "  the  kingdom  of  God,"  "  the  Son  of  Man," 
"  Messiahship,"  etc.,  and  with  problems  of  genuineness 
in  the  hght  of  "  higher  "  criticism ;  while  the  lower  problems, 
whose  treatment  involves  real  scavenger's  work  in  which 
one  is  almost  choked  in  dust,  are  passed  by  on  the  other 
side.  Or  where  this  is  not  the  case,  the  investigation  is 
still  never  carried  far  enough,  it  breaks  off  prematurely, 
and  the  critic  rests  satisfied  with  work  only  half  done. 
Hence  the  wretched  phght  in  which  the  criticism  of  the 
Gospels  finds  itself  in  these  days.  .  .  .  This  wretched 
state  is  apparent  above  aU  in  the  case  of  those  who  are 
compelled  to  take  their  knowledge  of  the  criticism  of  the 
New  Testament  at  second  hand,  or  have  condemned 
themselves  to  this  unassuming  intellectual  position.  They 
are  like  reeds  swajdng  with  the  blasts  of  the  most  extreme 
and  mutually  exclusive  hypotheses,  and  find  everything 
which  is  offered  them  in  this  connection  *'  very  worthy 
of  consideration."  To-day  they  are  ready  to  believe  that 
there  was  no  such  person  as  Jesus,  while  yesterday  they 
regarded  Him  as  a  neurotic  visionary  shown  to  be  such 
with  convincing  force  by  His  own  words,  if  only  these  are 
rightly  interpreted,  which  words,  by  the  way,  have  been 
excellently  transmitted  by  tradition.  To-morrow  He 
has  become  for  them  an  Essene,  as  may  be  proved  hke- 
wise  from  His  own  words  ;  and  yet  the  day  before  yesterday 


202  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

none  of  those  words  were  His  own ;  and  perhaps  on  the 
very  same  day  it  was  accounted  correct  to  regard  Him  as 
belonging  to  some  Greek  sect  of  esoteric  gnostics — a  sect 
which  still  remains  to  be  discovered,  and  which  with  its 
symbols  and  sacraments  represented  a  rehgion  of  a 
chaotic  and  retrograde  character,  nay,  exercised  a 
beneficial  influence  upon  the  development  of  culture.  Or 
rather  He  was  an  anarchist  monk  hke  Tolstoi,  or  still 
better,  a  genuine  Buddhist,  who  had,  however,  come 
under  the  influence  of  ideas  originating  in  ancient  Babylon, 
Persia,  Egypt,  and  Greece;  or,  better  still,  He  was  the 
eponymous  hero  of  the  mildly  revolutionary  and 
moderately  radical  fourth  estate  in  the  capital  of  the 
Roman  world.  It  is  evident,  forsooth,  that  He  may 
possibly  have  been  all  of  these  things,  and  may  be  assumed 
to  have  been  one  of  them.  If,  therefore,  one  only  keeps 
hold  of  all  these  reins,  naturally  with  a  loose  hand,  one  is 
shielded  from  the  reproach  of  not  being  up  to  date,  and 
this  is  more  important  by  far  than  the  knowledge  of  the 
facts  themselves,  which  indeed  do  not  so  much  concern 
us,  seeing  that  in  this  twentieth  century  we  must  of  course 
wean  ourselves  from  a  contemptible  dependence  upon 
history  in  matters  of  rehgion '  {The  Sayings  of  Jesus, 
Intro,  p.  xiii.). 

The  sarcasm  in  this  statement  is  sharp,  but  most  of 
those  who  have  considered  the  matter  will  ackno\^ledge 
that  it  is  deserved.  There  is  no  question  in  rehgion  of 
such  supreme  importance  as  that  of  the  fact  of  Christ, 
and  the  significance  of  that  fact  for  men.  For  the  discovery 
of  these  things  we  are  dependent  upon  our  own  experience 
in  the  light  of  certain  documents.  The  history  of  these 
documents,  then,  how  they  came  into  being,  the  relation 
of  one  writer  to  the  other,  and  the  point  of  view  from 
which  each  writer  wrote,  these  things  are  of  the  first 
importance,  and  yet  they  are  left  to  only  a  few.  The 
greater  number  of  these  are  content  with  a  very  partial 


VII.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       203 

investigation,  on  the  strength  of  which  they  make  the 
most  elaborate,  the  most  destructive,  theories,  to  the 
distress  and  often  the  rehgious  loss  of  those  who  cannot 
verify  their  data. 

What  then  may  we  claim  to  be  accredited  results  in 
criticism  ?  What  balance  may  we  strike  between  losses 
and  gains  in  the  critical  method  of  dealing  with  the  Gospel 
records  ?  In  former  days  we  used  to  speak  of  '  a  threefold 
evidence,'  and  of  '  a  triple  tradition.'  Such  phrases 
became  current  when  the  three  Gospels  were  thought  to 
be  independent  of  one  another.  They  implied  a  narrative 
which  had  come  to  us  along  three  distinct  Unes,  and  had 
emanated  from  three  distinct  sources.  Where  the  accounts 
given  showed  correspondence,  it  was  felt  that  the  evidence 
was  peculiarly  strong.  At  the  mouth  of  two  or  three 
witnesses  every  word  might  be  estabhshed.  But  as  soon 
as  it  became  evident  that  the  Gospels  were  not  independent, 
but  that  each  contained  matter  which,  even  in  details  of 
expression,  belonged  also  to  the  other  two,  it  became 
necessary  to  abandon  such  expressions  or  to  use  them  in 
another  sense.  The  latter  course  was  taken  by  Dr.  E.  A. 
Abbott,^  who  used  the  phrase  '  triple  tradition  '  for  '  those 
words  and  phrases  which  are  common  to  Matthew,  Mark, 
and  Luke.'  But  in  more  recent  days  it  has  been  seen  that 
the  phrase  cannot  be  used  with  this  meaning.  For  critical 
study  of  Gospel  sources  has  shown  that  where  such  words 
and  phrases  occur  the  hnguistic  correspondence  is  often 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  writings  were  taken  from  a  common 
source.  It  is  now  generally  accepted  that  the  first  and 
third  evangehsts  have  embodied  in  their  Gospels  whole 
blocks  of  narrative  which,  if  not  taken  directly  from  the 
second  Gospel,  are  distinctly  Markan  in  origin.  Where 
such  correspondences  occur  we  have  not  a  triple  tradition 
but  a  single  tradition,  and  at  first  sight  it  would  appear 
that  there  had  been  in  consequence  some  loss  of  corro- 

1  Encylo.  Brit.,  subvert.  'Gospels.' 


204  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

borative  evidence  in  consequence.  In  the  same  way  the 
'  double  tradition '  which  was  found  in  the  sayings  of  our 
Lord  recorded  in  both  Matthew  and  Luke  is,  as  a  phrase, 
open  to  objection  on  the  part  of  those  who  hold  that  one 
evangeUst  embodied  in  his  Gospel  that  which  had  appeared 
in  the  writings  of  his  predecessor,  or  that  each  had  recourse 
to  a  common  collection  which  was  prior  to  both  of  theirs. 
In  this  case,  too,  the  tradition  would  be  really  single,  in  the 
sense  that  the  two  records  emanated  from  the  same  source. 
We  have  seen  that  probably  there  is  more  to  be  said  in 
favour  of  this  double  tradition  than  could  be  said  in  favour 
of  the  triple  ;  for  opinion  incHnes  to  the  behef  that  St. 
Luke  and  St.  Matthew  derived  their  discourses  of  our  Lord 
from  two  independent  collections  of  Logia.^ 

It  must  of  course  always  be  understood  that  where  one 
evangehst  has  embodied  the  writings  of  his  predecessor 
in  his  own  work,  there  has  been  no  attempt  at  deception, 
collusion,  or  literary  dishonesty.  He  would  do  so,  we 
may  feel  sure,  because  in  his  opinion  the  account  was 
authoritative,  and  if  we  believe  that  the  influence  of  the 
Spirit  of  truth  rested  upon  him  in  this  process  of  selection, 
as  it  had  rested  upon  his  predecessor  in  recording  this  or 
that  incident  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  though  there  may  not 
be  a  triple  tradition  there  is  nevertheless  a  triple  authority 
for  the  incident  as  having  approved  itself  to  three  inde- 
pendent evangelists.  But  the  fact  is  that  this  loss  of 
corroborative  evidence  is  only  in  appearance,  and  we 
may  see  that  in  an  incident  or  saying  which  appears  in 
the  three  strata,  which  run  through  the  Gospel  narrative, 
we  have  our  threefold  tradition  not  merely  restored  but 
given  now  in  a  form  which  is  divested  of  the  many  un- 
certainties which  belonged  to  the  former  view  of  the 
Gospels,  and  resting  upon  a  more  assured  historical  basis. 
For  we  may  now  feel  confident  that  we  have  in  the  three 
Gospels  first  of  all  a  common  Markan  narrative.     This  is 

1  See  p.  56. 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       205 

generally  acknowledged  to  rest  upon  a  source  more 
authoritative  than  St.  Mark  himself.  The  latter  may  be 
responsible  for  details  of  phraseology,  and  it  is  probable 
that  he  has  inserted  here  and  there  a  section  which  rests 
upon  his  own  authority  and  experience  ;  but  by  far  the 
greatest  amount  of  the  Markan  narrative  is  acknowledged 
to  be  Petrine  in  origin,  and  the  statement,  preserved  for 
us  by  Eusebius,  that  St.  Mark  wrote  down  what  St.  Peter 
was  in  the  habit  of  saying  to  his  hearers  is  seen  to  be 
intrinsically  correct.  In  the  Markan  narrative  then  we 
are  able  to  go  behind  St.  Mark  to  the  great  advantage  of 
the  record  in  the  matter  of  authority.  In  the  chapters 
which  precede  this  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  show 
that  the  original  memoirs  of  St.  Peter's  preaching  were 
enriched  by  the  addition  of  incidents  from  the  same 
source.  These  are  therefore  as  authentic  as  the  first,  and 
all  tend  to  heighten  the  effect  of  that  great  PersonaHty 
whom  St.  Peter  portrayed  to  the  early  Church. 

There  is  less  agreement  among  modem  critics  with 
reference  to  the  second  source,  but  it  is  a  distinct  gain  on 
the  side  of  the  Discourse  Document  that  we  now  have  this 
clearly  distinguished  from  the  Markan  narrative.  Scholars 
differ  as  to  the  nature  and  contents  of  Q,  but  all  are  agreed 
that  this  document  is  other  than  that  which  is  most  fuUy 
expressed  in  the  second  Gospel ;  and,  though  the  authority 
of  St.  Matthew  cannot  be  claimed  for  the  whole  of  the  first 
Gospel,  yet  it  is  certain  that  his  contribution  is  incor- 
porated in  that  Gospel,  and  that  it  must  be  sought  in  that 
part  of  it  which  records  the  discourses  of  Jesus.  Here 
then  we  are  able  to  recover  the  double  tradition  as  we 
have  recovered  the  triple.  For  when  we  find  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  given  in  connection  with  some  incident  in  Mark 
and  again  in  the  form  of  a  separate  Logian  in  Matthew,  or 
— as  sometimes  happens — in  the  narrative  section  and  also 
in  the  discourses  of  the  first  Gospel,  we  have  undoubtedly 
a  doubly  authenticated  record,  and  the  authority  of  St. 


206  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

Matthew  may  be  added  to  that  of  St.  Peter  in  the  Markan 
narrative. 

As  we  have  shown  in  preceding  chapters,  scholars  are 
uncertain  whether  St.  Luke  derived  the  sayings  recorded 
by  him  from  the  same  source  as  that  which  St.  Matthew 
used.  Most  critics  agree  that  he  has  done  so,  and  this 
common  source  is  that  which  has  been  designated  by  the 
formula  Q.  But  there  is  an  increasing  opinion  that  the 
differences  between  the  sayings  in  the  one  Gospel  and 
those  in  the  other  are  too  great  to  justify  this  behef  in  a 
common  source,  and  if  this  opinion  becomes  estabhshed 
we  shall  secure  another  authority  for  sajdngs  which  appear 
in  the  three  Gospels.  For  though  St.  Luke  was  not  an 
apostle,  as  St.  Peter  and  St.  Matthew  were,  yet  we  cannot 
doubt  that  he  too  was  guided  in  his  selection  of  those 
deeds  and  words  which  he  has  recorded.  There  is  no  small 
measure  of  inspiration  to  be  found  in  the  work  of  the 
evangehst  who  has  preserved  for  us  the  Parable  of  the 
Prodigal  Son. 

There  remains  the  considerable  section  which  contains 
matter  pecuUar  to  the  third  Gospel.  Opinions  as  to  the 
source  or  sources  of  this  section  are  many  and  varied ; 
but  whatever  its  source  may  be  there  can  be  no  two 
opinions  as  to  its  value.  It  may  be  described  as  being 
in  itself  a  Gospel — a  Gospel  of  Love  and  Forgiveness. 
It  begins  with  the  hfe  of  the  Holy  Family,  and  all  the 
wonder  of  the  revelation  made  to  her  who  was  indeed 
'  blessed  among  women,'  and  it  closes  with  the  revelation 
to  loving  hearts  of  the  Risen  Lord,  and  of  His  return  to 
the  bosom  of  the  Father.  All  through  the  intervening 
chapters  there  runs  the  golden  thread  of  Christ's  compassion 
for  outcast  Jew  and  aUen  Samaritan,  and  His  gentle  and 
reverent  deahng  with  needy  womanhood.  It  is  the 
Gospel  which  tells  us  of  joy  in  heaven  for  the  penitent, 
and  of  a  place  in  the  Father's  house  for  Lazarus  the  beggar, 
and  for  Zacchaeus  the  pubHcan.      Whoever    may  have 


vn.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       207 

furnished  this  record  there  is  no  mistaking  the  note  of 
inspiration  in  it.  St.  Luke  obtained  the  priceless  story 
from  one  who  saw  and  heard  the  Master,  and  had  the 
insight  of  love  and  the  quick  intuition  which  enabled  one, 
who  was  probably  the  earliest  of  all  the  evangeHsts,  to 
record  that  which  the  world  could  never  afford  to  lose. 
The  influence  of  the  Spirit  which  gave  St.  Luke  the  unerring 
instinct  of  a  true  discrimination  led  him  to  select  this 
material  for  insertion  in  his  Gospel.  Here  too  we  may 
claim  authority  for  the  record,  an  authority  which  belongs 
to  St.  Luke,  and  in  equal  measure  to  his  source. 

This  present  study  of  writings,  which  contain  what 
the  human  mind  will  never  exhaust,  draws  to  its  appointed 
close.  FideUty  to  the  increasing  Hght  given  to  men,  in 
fulfilment  of  the  promise  that  through  the  ministry  of 
the  Spirit  of  truth  we  shall  be  led  into  all  the  truth,  has 
caused  us  to  see  that  other  writings  stand  behind  the 
Gospels  we  have  been  considering,  and  that  we  can  only 
understand  the  relation  of  these  Gospels  to  one  another 
in  so  far  as  we  take  into  account  the  sources  from  which 
they  sprang.  To  some  it  may  seem  that  such  an  analysis 
is  fraught  with  peril.  They  tremble  for  the  ark  of  God. 
They  fear  that  such  Gospels,  precious  to  them  beyond  all 
that  words  can  express,  may  lose  the  authority  which 
their  own  spiritual  experience  has  told  them  belongs  to 
the  words  which  are  spirit  and  hfe.  To  all  such  we  would 
say  that  no  criticism  of  human  words  can  affect  the  fact 
which  those  words  seek  to  express.  It  is  the  hving  Christ 
who  has  brought  new  Ufe  to  the  Christian,  and  he  must 
beware  lest,  in  his  anxiety  for  the  letter,  he  exalt  this  last 
to  a  place  which  belongs  to  the  Christ  Himself.  But  we 
would  claim  that  to  the  humble  and  the  devout  seeker 
after  truth  any  attempt  to  see  more  clearly  what  part 
the  human  element  has  played  in  the  production  and  the 
preservation  of  these  Scriptures  only  helps  him  to  see  more 
clearly  that  in  which  the  hope  of  all  the  world  resides — 


208  GOSPEL  ORIGINS  [ch. 

the  Person  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  Indeed, 
the  wonder  grows  when  we  consider  that  which  emerges 
from  the  many  and  varied  parts  which  make  up  the 
whole  of  the  Christian  record.  Men  and  women,  some 
known  some  unknown,  have  brought  into  that  record 
their  several  recollections  of  what  their  Master  wrought, 
and  what  were  the  words  which  fell  from  His  lips.  Their 
recollection  has  been  exposed  to  the  common  weakness 
of  all  that  is  human.  Their  impressions  have  been  coloured 
by  their  own  pecuHar  spiritual  and  mental  condition  to 
which  that  Master  appealed,  through  which  indeed  they 
came  to  see  Him  as  He  was.  But  out  of  all  these  varied 
elements,  as  the  final  result  of  all  these  processes,  there 
has  emerged  the  wonder  of  a  PersonaHty  infinite  in 
significance,  meeting  the  differing  needs  of  a  world  of 
men,  and  yet  single  and  complete.  There  is  no  incongruity 
between  the  picture  drawn  by  one  evangehst  and  the 
picture  drawn  by  another.  It  is  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
who  is  the  heart  of  the  Gospels,  however  many  those  may 
be  who  have  taken  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narrative. 

The  unquestioned  cause  of  this  wondrous  unity  is  to  be 
discovered  in  Him  who  is  the  spring  and  source  of 
inspiration.  For  there  rested  upon  the  eager-hearted 
fisherman,  telling  to  some  group  of  simple  souls  what 
Jesus  did,  the  directing  Spirit  of  truth.  With  equal 
force,  with  a  like  immediacy,  that  same  Spirit  guided  and 
governed  the  young  man  who  hstened  to  the  preacher, 
and  wrote  down  all  he  could  remember  of  what  the 
preacher  said.  Away  in  humble  homes  men  spoke  of 
what  the  Master  said ;  gentle  women  recalled  His 
wondrous  grace,  and  over  their  meditations  the  same 
Spirit  brooded  creating  the  one  impression,  framing  the 
one  figure  which  was  to  command  the  adoration  of  the 
world.  Later  on  the  Church  took  up  the  work.  This 
evangelist  or  that  set  himself  to  select  what  was  worthy 
to  abide,  and  to  discard  the  manifold  accretions  which 


m.]      JUSTIFICATION  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM       209 

threatened  to  conceal  or  to  disfigure.     Later  still  in  the 
councils  of  the  Church  men  considered  what  books  should 
be  accepted  as  sacred  Scriptures,  as  the  Gospel  of  the  Uving 
t  God.     Over    their    deUberations    the    same    Holy    Spirit 

'  presided,  and  because  of  His  continued  ministry  we  dis- 

cover to-day  in  the  Gospels  this  marvellous  unity  of 
thought  and  purpose,  and  stand  face  to  face  at  last  with 
one  Person  human  and  divine,  in  knowledge  of  whom 
standeth  our  eternal  Ufe. 

*  Here  is  a  tale  of  things  done  ages  since ; 
What  truth  was  ever  told  the  second  day  1 
Wonders  that  would  prove  doctrine,  go  for  nought ; 
Remains  the  doctrine,  love  :  Well,  we  must  love ; 
And  what  we  love  most,  power  and  love  in  one, 
Let  us  acknowledge  on  the  record  here, 
Accepting  these  in  Christ.' 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Synopsis  of  the  Gospels  in  Greek,  by  Dr.  Arthur  Wright. 

Horae  Synopticae,  by  the  Rev.  Sir  J.  C.  Hawkins. 

The  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  by  Dr.  V.  H.  Stanton. 

Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem,  by  Members  of  the 
University  of  Oxford. 

An  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  by  Dr,  T.  Zahn. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  New  Testament,  by 
Dr.  J.  Moffat. 

Principles  of  Lit.  Crit.  and  the  Synoptic  Problem,  by  Dr.  E. 
De  Witt  Burton. 

The  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  by  Dr.  B.  W.  Bacon. 

The  Gospel  History  and  its  Transmission,  by  Dr.  Burkitt. 

The  Sayings  of  Jesus,  by  Dr.  Adolf  Harnack. 

The  Common  Tradition  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  by  Dr.  E.  A. 
Abbott  and  Mr.  W.  G.  Rushbrooke. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Synoptic  Problem,  by  Rev.  E.  R. 
Buckley. 

Articles  on  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  Logia  and  Gospels,  etc., 
in  The  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  (Hastings)  j  The  Encyclopedia 
Biblica  (Cheyne). 


ug 


INDEX 


Abbot,  Dr.  E.  A.,  28. 

Allen's,  Dr. ,  Analysis  of  Matthaean 

Sayings,  91. 
Ammonian  Sections,  21. 
Apocalypse,  111,  195ff.,  125ff. 

Bacon,  Dr.,  35. 
Barnes,  M.,  75,  109. 
Burkitt,  Dr.,  29. 
Burton,  Dr.,  36. 

Clement,  A.,  6,  9,  22. 

DiDACHB,  5. 

Divorce,  Christ's  Teaching  on,  10. 

EusEBius,  4,  6,  40. 
Eusebian  Sections,  21. 

Harnack,  6,  150,  168,  201. 
Harnack's  Rearrangement  of    Q, 

89. 
Herod,  References  to,  in  Luke, 

163. 

Irenaeus,  24. 

LiGHTFOOT,  Dr.,  43. 

Logia.     See  Sayings. 
Luke,  use  of  Q,  56ff.,  185. 

Introduction      to      third 

Gospel,  145fr. 

Use  of  Markan  Document, 

148fr. 

Analysis  of  third  Gospel, 

171ff. 

Mark,  Priority  of,  63,  104ff. 
Markan  Sections  in  First  Gospel, 
78flF. 


Mark's  use  of  Q,  110,  144. 

Mark,  Three  editions,  ll7ff. 

Secondary  features,  119ff. 

Analysis  of,  130flf. 

Matthew,    Contribution  to  First 

Gospel,  66ff. 
Analysis,  93flf. 


Nativity  Section  in  Matthew,  64. 
in  Luke,  167. 

OxTORD  Studies,  etc.,  13,  33,  90. 
Oral  Tradition,  I7ff. 
Oxyrhynchus,  48flF. 
Old    Testament     Quotations    in 
Matthew,  101. 

Philip,  Daughters  of,  160. 

'Q,'38ff.,  80. 

Salmon,  Dr.,  28. 
Sayings,  7,  37ff. 
Stanton,  Dr.,  30,  76,  102. 
Stanton's  Analysis  of  Matthaean 
Logia,  90. 

Tatian's  Diatessaron,  22. 

Thompson,  J.  M.,  189flf. 

Travel  Document  in  Luke,  159flf., 

206. 
Triple  Tradition,  203. 

Ur-Markus,  28. 

Wright,  Dr.   A.,   18,   27,   109, 
117,  162. 


Zahn,  62ff. 


211 


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